"I congratulate you, Herr Hartwig," he said. "You were right. For these three days I have had no doubt of it; but, to be sure, when one has made the egg stand upright, another knows how it is done. And then I was not quite certain that I would have found it out myself, so it was but fair that I should let the gentlemen of the Technical Bureau first try their hands. They have been long getting at it, and your calculation is just three times as simple as theirs. I have already combed their heads for them a little, and there they sit with them hanging down."
The modest man let his own head hang a little also as he finished.
"Well, Herr Manager," I said, "the error has been discovered, and that was the main question; who discovered it is a matter of little consequence."
"Excuse me, Herr Hartwig," he answered, "but I disagree with you here. To the manager of such an establishment as this it cannot be a matter of indifference whether the work of the Technical Bureau is done by its staff, or in the machine-shop, for the main thing is that every man shall stand in the place where he belongs, and after this example"--here he laid his hand upon my drawing, which was on the table--"no other proof is needed that you are altogether in a false position."
"But, Herr Manager," I replied, "that is entirely my own fault, and as a man makes his bed so must he lie."
"Yes," said the manager, "that is my comfort; but I had much rather that you had been candid with me from the first. I might then be able to send back with a protest the snub which the commerzienrath has sent me to-day. There--read for yourself."
I took the paper which the manager offered me, and glanced over a letter four pages long, in which all possible reproaches were heaped upon poor Herr Berg because he had had so long in the works a man like myself, whose mathematical and technical genius had long been known to him, the commerzienrath, and had not reported the fact at once--"and even granting that you considered yourself bound to conceal matters of the highest importance, it was, at the very least, your duty and obligation to give my young friend a position corresponding to his talents and abilities; or did you fear that perhaps this position would, in that event, be no other than your own place, Herr Manager?
"But that is shameful!" I cried, throwing down the letter.
The worthy man shook his head. "His meaning is not so bad as his words," he said, "and if it were, we are used to it. Read further."
"I do not wish to read any more."