"An elderly gentleman of Wurzburg, at whose door my mother, overcome by fatigue and sickness, one evening fell down. Incapacitated by ill-health from pursuing her former laborious and adventurous occupation, she had wandered that far on her way to Nassau, her native country. She never got there, but died at Wurzburg, and was buried at the charges of the excellent Ulrich Esch, who further smoothed her dying pillow by the promise that I should be cared for, and brought up as his child. Herr Esch had been a shopkeeper in Cologne, but having early amassed, by dint of industry and frugality, the moderate competency he coveted, he had retired from business, and settled down in a snug country-house in the suburbs of Wurzburg, where he fell in love and got married. Since then several years had elapsed, and the union, in other respects happy, had proved childless. It was a great vexation to the worthy man and to his meek sweet-tempered spouse, when they were finally compelled to admit the small probability of their ever being blessed with a family. Herr Esch tried to draw consolation from his pipe, his wife from her pet dogs and birds; but these were poor substitutes for the cheering presence of children, and more than once the pair had consulted together on the propriety of adopting a child. They still demurred, however, when my mother's arrival and subsequent death put an end to their indecision. The kind-hearted people received her into their house, and bestowed every care upon her, and, when she departed, they took me before the justice of peace, and formally adopted me as their child. For some months my situation was most enviable. True, that old Hannchen, the sour housekeeper, looked upon me with small favour, and was occasionally heard to mutter, when my presence gave her additional trouble, something about beggar's brats and foundlings. True also that Fido, the small white lapdog, viewed me with manifest jealousy, and that Mops, the big poodle, made felonious attempts to bite, which finally occasioned his banishment from the premises. I was too young to be sensible to these small outbreaks of envy, and my infancy glided happily away; when suddenly there was great jubilee in the house, and, after eight years of childless wedlock, Madame Esch presented her husband with a son. This event made a vast difference in my position and prospects, although I still had no reason to complain of my lot. My worthy foster-parents did their duty by me, and did not forget, in their gush of joy at the birth of a child to their old age, the claims of the orphan they had gathered up at their door. In due time I was sent to school, where, being extremely idle, I remained unusually late before I was held to have amassed a sufficient amount of learning to qualify me for a seat on a high stool in a Wurzburg counting-house. I was a desperately lazy dog, and a bit of a scapegrace, with a turn for making bad verses, and ridiculous ideas on the subject of liberty,