“Soon after this I was arrested as a disorderly tramp and sentenced to a short imprisonment with an injunction to find work on pain of being expelled from the town. The yearly fair was being held at Frankfurt, and I obtained employment on my release with the proprietor of a menagerie. My business was to attract people to his show, but I soon left him, as the public refused to pay for the sight of the sorry and starved wild beasts he exhibited. Next I hired myself out to the manager of a puppet show where I developed a great aptitude in the art of manipulating the puppets. When the fair was over, I had got together quite a considerable sum of money and I resolved to leave Frankfurt and go on to Stuttgart. “Stuttgart is a happy hunting ground for those of my sort. It contains many ‘pietists,’--a sect made up of good and charitable souls who give freely. I remained there four weeks and did a wonderful business. I now figured in my papers as a compositor and on the strength of these documents even appeared before the Bavarian consul. I had collected a fine store of clothes and a lot of money when one day, toward the end of the fourth week of my stay, I was arrested in the Königstrasse by a man in civilian dress who told me to follow him. There was something in his looks which so impressed me that I dared not resist. I was condemned by the police actuary to fourteen days’ imprisonment and then to be banished from the town. I was taken to the Stuttgart prison where the governor received me with harsh words; he was a Swabian and the Swabians are ruder than any other Germans; in other respects I had nothing to complain of. “Several of my colleagues were sitting or lying about in a large room where we were detained, and at first they did not notice me. At last an old boy, who had evidently been through many vicissitudes, addressed me, and after some conversation, promised to wake me next morning to communicate something of importance. At three o’clock he poked me gently in the side and then led me to a corner of the room; there he told me that he was interested in me and wished to contribute to my success in the future, and that though he knew I was a member of the guilds, still I did not understand what most appealed to the public. At the present time, the war being just over, soldiers played first fiddle. He possessed an iron cross and a genuine ‘legitimation’ as the owner of it. This would suit me excellently, as it came from a Bavarian. He was old and had no more use for it and would sell it to me for three thalers. I was overjoyed at this offer which promised me large receipts, and I gladly paid the old man the three thalers.