purpose! I ask now for your belated consent to do what can no longer be undone.10 Werner writes this letter a few days after the New Year’s Eve meeting with his future associate Halske, when they reach an agreement on the construction of the pointer telegraph.
WITH WARMEST THANKS Wilhelm Drumann turns out to be understanding. He must have also believed in Werner, who sends a note of thanks on January 25, 1847. My honored friend and cousin! […] I accept with pleasure your kind and loving offer of a loan. It gives me the mental freedom to banish the worries of the immediate existence and to focus all my strength on implementing my plans for the near-future. […] Please allow me to include a certificate of my debt, as order dictates in money matters, along with my warmest thanks.11 On the same day, he tells his brother William, that a delicate situation had been avoided thanks to Drumann’s loan. You see that I am not idle, and have much to do and take care of. It is however high time that I make progress if I want to stay on top. If Louis and Hans, cousin Georg, and, a few days ago, Drumann (!) had not stepped in with financial help, I would have had been bankrupt long ago.12
PROVIDING WHAT IS L ACKING Becoming a businessman means having the nerve to maintain a permanent balancing act. Things can go wrong at any time, but they can take a positive turn just as quickly. On October 1, 1847, Siemens & Halske is launched. A few weeks earlier in August, 1847, Werner writes William: At the moment, this is how things are looking: I have definitively agreed to build a workshop with Halske, the mechanic who recently separated from his associate, and it will hopefully be fully operational in six weeks. […] Halske, 87