128 ANDREAS KURTZ 



Niven was an excellent man of business, who 

 discovered markets and customers for their 

 products, and was a clever salesman. 



About the year 1828 fortune smiled upon 

 them so graciously that in one year they made 

 a profit, which in those days was looked upon 

 as a very handsome fortune. Whether there 

 were faults on both sides we cannot now relate ; 

 but Kurtz was naturally excitable, irritable and 

 hasty, and although the relationship between 

 Niven and himself had contributed so largely 

 to the benefit of both, they nevertheless 

 quarrelled, and the partnership was dissolved. 

 To Kurtz this event was little short of a 

 calamity. Niven was the very man he needed 

 to be associated with. Kurtz was no man of 

 business, although a good arithmetician and 

 fair mathematician, his tastes drove him to his 

 laboratory instead of his counting-house; 

 chemical experiments were far more congenial 

 to him than the keeping of accounts, and the 

 superintendence of the processes of manu- 

 facture than the visiting of markets, the 

 winning of customers and the disposal of 

 goods. The "value of money" was a subject 

 in which he had never been trained; he had 

 not the instincts of a miser nor the qualities 

 of a merchant. He was a chemist, he loved 



