At school he was an example of industry; and when the drawing-master began to declare that he must be a painter, and the classical teacher to devote him to Philology, the boy might have been in some danger of being diverted from the serious pursuit of any one specific calling but for an accident which determined his choice.
Every Christmas evening the mail brought to the house of the paternal Wohlfart a box containing a loaf of the finest sugar and a quantity of the best coffee.

This sugar the good man himself broke into squares: the coffee was roasted by his wife's own hands; and the complacency with which they sipped their first cup was pleasant to behold.

These were seasons when, to the childish soul of Anton, the whole house seemed pervaded with poetry, and his father was never weary of telling him the history of this periodical present.

Many years ago, he had chanced to find, in a dusty bundle of law-papers, a document of great importance to a well-known mercantile house in the capital.

This document he had at once forwarded, and, in consequence of it, the firm had been enabled to gain a long-pending lawsuit, which had previously threatened to go against them; upon which the young head of the concern had written his acknowledgments, and Wohlfart had refused to be thanked, having, he said, only done his duty.