16 THE OPPEI.MANNS show-windows and stopped at the main entrance. Martin would have liked to jurop out quickly, but he restrained him- seIf, mindful of his dignity. Leschinsky, the old doorman, stood at attention befoce he swung the revolving doors in mo- tion, Martin Oppermann put a finger to the brim of his hat, as he did every day. August Leschinsky had been ernployed in the business ever since Immanuel Oppermann's time. He knew every detail. He certainly knew that Martin had [ust come from congratulating his brother Gustav on his fiftieth birthday. Did the old man find an excuse for bis late arrival in this fact? Leschinsky's face with its grey, bristiing mous- tache, was always surly, the man's attitude was chronically un- bending. Today he was standing particularly erect and stiff: he evidently approved of bis chief's conduet. Martin was less satisfied with his conduct than bis doorman. He took the elevator to his office on the third Hoor, He used the rear entrance, he did not want to catch sight of Heinrich Wels sitting rhere, waiting for him. On the wall above his desk hung, as in a11 the Oppermann business offices, the portrait of old Immanuel. He felt a slight pang at the thought that it was no longer the original, but a capy. It was of course fundamentally a matter of indifference whether the original hung here or at Gustav's. Gustav had, no douht, more appreciation of it, He certainly had more time to look at it, and it was hung in a better position in his house. At bottom, too, Gustav really had a better right to it. Still, it was annoying to feel that from now on he, Martin, would no longer have the original before his eyes. His secretary entered. Mail submitted by the chief clerks, Papers to be signed. Telephone calls. Oh, yes, and Herr Wels was waiting to see him, He had an appointment for eleven. "Has Herr Wels been there lang?" "[ust about half an hour," "Please ask him to corne in." Sitting erect in stiff dignity was a matter of habit with Mar-

BOOK ONE: YESTERDAY tin Oppermann, he did not have to assume apose. But today he did not feel in top form for this interview. He had care- fully weighed the proposition he intended putting before Wels, had discussed everything with his chief clerks Brieger and Hintze. It was essential that Wels be in a good humour, the matter was a delicate one, it was too bad that he had kept Wels waiting. The case was as foliows: At the very beginning Immanuel Oppermann had not manufactured the fumiture which he sold, but had left its manufacture to Heinrich Wels, senior, then a trustworthy young workman. When branch shops were established in Berlin, one in Steglitz and one in Potsdamer Strasse, it became more difficult to continue the arrangement with Wels. WeIs was reliable but he had to charge too much for his work. Soon after the death of Immanuel Oppermann, the firm began, at the instigation of Siegfried Brieger, the pres- ent chief clerk, to have part of the furniture made in eheaper factories. When the management of the business passed on to Gustav and Martin, they opened a factory of their own. For more complicated jobs and for special orders they had re- course, as before, to WeIs's workshop, But the principal needs of Oppermann's Furniture Stores, which had meanwhile established another branch in Berlin and five provincial branches, were now filled by their own werkshops. Heinrich Wels, junior, regarded this development with bit- terness. He was a few years oider than Gustav, a hard- working, reliable, slow-thinking man. He linked his factory to retail shops, model enterprises run with infinite care, in order to compete with the Oppermanns. But he was not successful in this. His prices could not campete with those of the standard- ized Oppermann furniture. Countless people knew the name of Oppermann. The trade-mark of the Oppermanns, the pic- ture of old Immanuel, had penetrated into the most distant provinces. The simple, old-fashioned slogan of the Opper-