After this the tramp wandered to and fro, from Baden to Offenburg, leading a precarious existence, working as a shoemaker when he could find employment and living royally when he had the funds, but begging for food and half-starved when out of luck. At last he reached Darmstadt where he joined an organisation of professional vagrants. Their headquarters were at a low tavern where false passports and “legitimation” papers were manufactured to help in confusing the police as to the true antecedents of this semi-criminal fraternity. He continues: “The day after my arrival at the inn, my new colleagues joined me at breakfast and a plan of campaign was fixed upon. I was to take off my shirt and leave it at the inn, wind a cloth around my neck and button up my coat to meet it; thus attired, I was to start out, accompanied by one of the vagrants dubbed in familiar parlance ‘the Baron.’ He was to point out to me the most likely houses for our purpose. I was to enter the first of these and beg for a shirt, and having obtained it, repeat the process at other houses. Thus by evening we should have collected from twenty to thirty shirts, which we were then to sell. By pursuing this line of business we should have money in abundance and live at our ease. This is a fair picture of the mode of existence of large numbers of journeymen lads in Germany, the children of respectable parents who go to perdition, body and soul. My first attempt turned out most successfully as the Baron had foretold, and I became very expert in my new calling. We worked as follows: The Baron pointed out a house where I might hope to obtain something in the way of a gift and indicated a place where he would wait for me to rejoin him. When the servant answered the door, I gave him the envelope containing my false ‘legitimation,’ and a begging letter describing my miserable condition, and asked him to take it to his mistress. He soon returned with my papers and a thaler, explaining that this was the best the lady could do for me. Flushed with victory, I ran to find the Baron, who slipped my papers into another envelope. He always carried a supply of envelopes to replace those that had to be torn open. We next went to the house of the Bavarian envoy, where I received a gulden and a good shirt. We continued our successful round until the evening, when we returned to the inn with our rich booty. Here every article was inspected, sorted, valued, and later, when the other habitués came in, the parlour was turned into an auction room. Among the buyers was a policeman and, as he had first choice, he selected the best of my shirts, some of which were quite new, for himself. Other purchasers followed, and at the end of the evening we had disposed of all our goods. Our ready money amounted to a good round sum and was divided into three portions. I had made more in this one day than I had ever been able to earn in a week.