People were constantly applying to him for payments, proposing to him terms for the transportation of freight.

His employees overwhelmed him in person and by letter with trifles with which he had never before concerned himself, as they used to settle these trifles at their own risk.

They looked for him and found him in the taverns, questioned him as to what and how it should be done; he would tell them sometimes without at all understanding in what way this or that should be done.

He noticed their concealed contempt for him, and almost always saw that they did not do the work as he had ordered, but did it in a different and better way.

In this he felt the clever hand of his godfather, and understood that the old man was thus pressing him in order to turn him to his way.