So we ran to the shop. I opened my windows, and Sâfel remained while I went home to eat a morsel, and get a good quantity of sous and small change.
Sorlé and Zeffen were at their counter selling small glassfuls. Everything went well as usual. But a quarter of an hour later, when the soldiers had broken ranks and put back their muskets in their places at the barracks, the crowd at my shop in the market, of people wishing to sell me coats, sacks, watches, pistols, cloaks, epaulettes, etc., was so great that without Sâfel's help I never could have got out of it.
I got all these things for almost nothing. Men of this sort never trouble themselves about to-morrow; their only thought was to live well from one day to another, to have tobacco, brandy, and the other good things which are never wanting in a garrisoned town.
That day, in six hours' time, I refurnished my shop with coats, cloaks, pantaloons, and thick boots of genuine German leather, of the first quality, and I bought things of all sorts—nearly fifteen hundred pounds' worth—which I afterward sold for six or seven times more than they cost me. All those landwehr were well-to-do, and even rich citizens, with good, substantial clothes.
The soldiers, too, sold me a good many watches, which Goulden the old watchmaker did not want, because they were taken from the dead.
But what gave me more pleasure than all the rest, was that Frichard, who was sick for three or four days, could not come and open his shop. It makes me laugh now to think of it. It gave the rascal that green jaundice which never left him as long as he lived.
At noon Sâfel went to fetch our dinner in a basket; we ate under the shed so as not to lose custom, and could not leave for a minute till night. Scarcely had one set gone, before two and often three others came at once.
I was sinking with fatigue, and so was Sâfel; nothing but our love of trade sustained us.
Another pleasant thing which I recall is that, on going home a few minutes before seven, we saw at a distance that our other shop was full. My wife and daughter had not been able to close it; they had raised the price, and the soldiers did not even notice it,—it seemed all right to them; so that not only the French money which I had just given them, but also Wurtemburg florins came to my pocket.
Two trades which help each other along are an excellent thing, Fritz: remember that! Without my brandies I should not have had the money to buy so many goods, and without the market where I gave ready money for the booty, the soldiers would not have had wherewith to buy my brandy. This shows us plainly that the Lord favors orderly and peaceable men, provided they know how to make the best use of their opportunities.