It is now night, the sun has set, but the moon has not yet risen, leaving only the sky full of stars. The noisy streets of the day have fallen silent, there are no pedestrians on the streets, and only the gas lamps on the roadside are still emitting dim light.

In this era before the electric revolution, the nightlife was always monotonous. The richer families might light candles and gather around the table to chat together, or let the dignified hostess read a book to everyone, sometimes a Bible, sometimes a novel.

For those who don't have money, there is only one thing to do at night, and that is to go to bed and sleep. The Scrooges were somewhere in between, not so rich that they could light the whole hall with a candlestick of seven candles made of silver, nor so rich that they could not afford to light a single oil lamp, like the poorest of the poor who had nothing to eat or wear. So, after dark, they would also light an oil lamp, and Joseph Sr. would go on with his work by the light of the lamp, by which Scrooge used to read and do his work, and his elder brother would read by the light of the lamp - sometimes the Bible (which almost everyone had a set of at home), and sometimes some books he borrowed from his former schoolmate, Mr. Tarr's son Peter. Sometimes he borrowed some novels from his former classmate, Mr. Tarr's son Peter.

Mr. Tarr was a longtime customer of Scrooge's family, a big, kindly man who was, in Scrooge's words, a good-natured brown bear. His wife died very soon, leaving him with two sons and a little girl. Mr. Tarr owns a small company, specializing in cotton trading, and although he is not a wealthy man, he is also from a middle-class family, so his family has a large collection of books. His oldest son, Peter, was a classmate of Carol's, and the two had a good relationship, so Carol could often borrow some books from their house to read.

Now, the youngest child in the family has also graduated, according to reason, the night can no longer be lit, but the habit formed over the past few years can not be changed at once. So, now, every evening, the family's activities have become Carol or Scrooge reading a novel to everyone, and tonight it was Carol's turn to read to everyone.

"At first, Marius thought that this was another daughter of the same man, roughly the sister of the previous one. But when the usual walking habit led him to the bench for the second time, he looked at it and recognized that she was still the same one. In six months, the little girl had become a girl, that's all. This phenomenon is very common. There is a moment when the girls seem to be the buds that suddenly blossom and become a rose in the blink of an eye. Yesterday, people ignored them as children, but today, when they meet again, they already feel that they are disruptive. ......"

This story is very familiar to Scrooge, it is the part in Les Misérables where Marius meets Cosette. When he was in college in his previous life, Scrooge used to love Hugo's works and dreamed of meeting a fairy-like girl at the end of a secluded path in a park. But later, as he grew older, he realized that the world was not the way Hugo wrote it, that there were not so many good and great people in the world, and that most good people were also very weak, as Balzac had depicted in The Human Comedy. So later on, Balzac became his favorite writer. But obviously, Big Brother liked Hugo a lot.

When he heard Carol's recitation today, Scrooge suddenly remembered Mr. Tarr's daughter, Anne, whom he had met two days before when he went with his brother to borrow books from Mr. Tarr's house. Anne is three years younger than Carol, just 15 years old now, just the right age. You could see the glow of youth jumping in her flaxen hair and big green eyes, just like a rose that suddenly exhaled its fragrance. Scrooge noticed at the time that his brother's tongue was in knots when he was talking to her. Today big brother suddenly read this paragraph again, it seems ......

The company's main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to its customers. It's already night time and there's a knock on the door at this hour, which is unusual.

Carol put down her book and said, "I'll go check." Then he asked in a loud voice, "Who is it?"

"It's me, I'm John Rockefeller. John Rockefeller. Is Scrooge home?" From the door came John Rockefeller's voice. Rockefeller's voice.

"I'm coming," Scrooge said as he stood up to open the door.

Scrooge opened the door and saw John standing in the doorway, panting slightly from what looked like a long walk.

"What can I do for you, John?" Scrooge said, and seeing that John was still panting a little, he added, "Come in and talk."

John Rockefeller nodded. Rockefeller nodded and followed Scrooge through the door. By now, Carroll had already put away the book "Les Misérables", and everyone looked at John Rockefeller, who had followed Scrooge in. Rockefeller.

"John, did you find a job?" Joseph asked. Some time ago, John Rockefeller used to come to give a job to Scrooge. Rockefeller often came to give a lecture to Scrooge, and Joseph and Carol often followed along to listen. So now the Scrooge family and John Rockefeller are very familiar with each other. Rockefeller has become very familiar.

"Yes, Uncle Joseph, I got a job, today!" John Rockefeller's face was full of joy. John Rockefeller's face was so happy that he could hardly hide it.

"Ah, that's not easy, congratulations! Which company is it?" Carroll was happy for him too.

"It's Hewitt Tuttle." John Rockefeller replied. Rockefeller replied, then he looked at everyone's face, knowing that everyone was not familiar with this company, so he explained again, "It's a company in the ore and agricultural products business, not very large, but it's doing quite well now ......"

"John your vision is not wrong." Joseph said, "Carol, bring out my half bottle of brandy, I want to have a drink with John."

"Okay." Carol immediately got up to get the brandy and the glass.

"John, tell me about that company's deal for you?" Scrooge also asked.

John? Rockefeller sat down in his chair and said, "The probationary period is three months, during which there is no pay. In addition to bookkeeping, I'll be responsible for collections and possibly some other business."

Scrooge, who was particularly attentive to the market rules of this era, now knew that the probationary period was as long as a quarter and that this naked exploitation without pay was the norm of the time. "This is a golden age for capitalists," Scrooge thought silently while telling Rockefeller, "Three months will be quick. As long as the results are achieved, a formal contract will be signed. By that time, you will have a stable income."

"Thank you for your encouragement, Scrooge!" John Rockefeller said. John Rockefeller said, "And I especially want to thank you for the idea you gave me. Besides, I have something to discuss with you today."

"What's the matter?" Scrooge asked.

"I took a serious look at the company's accounts today and found that the company has a lot of uncollected debts. I asked my colleagues and they told me that some of the outstanding amounts are very small, so it seems not good to go to the door to collect for such a small amount of money, while others are old customers of the company and not easy to offend ...... I want to know what you think."

"I would like to hear what you think first." The company's main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to the public.

John? Rockefeller thought for a moment and then said, "I think that when my boss offered me this opportunity, he specifically offered me to take on some of the collection work. Therefore, the boss is very keen to recover the money, even if each of these arrears seems to be small, but the accumulation of a small amount of sand into a tower. If you can get it back, the boss will naturally be very happy. Many of this money is owed by the old customers, for the sake of the relationship, the boss is not convenient to ask for himself - this is not good for the face of both sides - then, let very shallow qualifications, not even the company's staff to go to them to ask for this money, it is much more convenient to have someone with very little experience, not even a company employee, ask them for the money. Even if something happens, it won't affect the relationship. If the old customer is very angry, the boss can also fire me to give him out of anger. Therefore, I think, I must be able to recover the money, but I also can not make things too big, must grasp a good measure."

Scrooge noticed that Rockefeller was hesitant at first when he said these words, but then his words became more and more fluent. It was clear that he had considerable confidence in his views. Moreover, Scrooge also noticed that from the beginning, he was analyzing the problem from the boss's point of view!

"I agree with you, John. I think the key issue right now is to figure out how far we can go." Scrooge thought about it and said, "I think we need to consider all the different scenarios and responses to the different situations where we owe money. The worst-case scenario is that the party who owes the money has the attitude of not paying if he can, and never paying tomorrow morning or tonight. That is to say, he is completely in malicious default. So how can we get them to pay? We must prove to them that we have the means to cause them more damage than they can get by not paying - note, just prove it to them, not do it, of course, if they do not get on board, then once we start to do it, we must throw away all worries and beat him up! Such a person, even if he is a regular customer, is not too important to the company because he carries malice. It's not a bad thing for the boss to get rid of such a guy."

"And what means do we have to inflict such damage on him, by the courts? Scrooge, the courts are so inefficient that it's not uncommon for a case to drag on for years." Rockefeller said

"You don't have to worry about this, I have plenty of ways." The company's main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to the public.