This shameless deception profited Thalreuter greatly. As a prince in disguise, he was treated with much indulgence and liberally supplied with the means of extravagance. He now invented a fresh lie, that of a proposed match between the son, Lieutenant von Stromwalter, and the heiress of a rich and noble family, the Von Wallers, and the whole intrigue was carried forward even as far as betrothal without bringing the parties together, secrecy being essential to the very last, as Thalreuter explained to the old people. But he produced letters--of his own manufacture--from the grand-duke and various people of rank at court, all of them congratulating the Stromwalters on the approaching most desirable marriage. The ultimate aim of the fraud was at last shown when Thalreuter forged a letter calling upon the baroness to pay a sum of 10,000 florins into the military fund as a guarantee that her son was able to support a wife. The generous grand-duke had offered to advance a large part of this money, but at least 2,700 florins must come from the Stromwalters, and they actually handed the cash to Thalreuter, who rapidly squandered it in dissipation of the most reckless kind. Were it not that all the facts in this marvellous imposture are vouched for by the legal proceedings afterward instituted, it would be difficult to credit the amazing credulity, amounting to imbecility, displayed by the Stromwalters. Thalreuter played his game with extraordinary boldness, and continually traded on the name of the son in support of his preposterous fictions. He invented the story of a seditious plot, in which the lieutenant was embroiled and for which he was arrested, only to extract a sum of one thousand florins for obtaining his release from prison. The next fraud was a trumped-up tale that the lieutenant was in serious pecuniary difficulties and that, unless cleared, the marriage must be broken off; the result was a further advance by the baroness, who sold off a quantity of her furniture to obtain cash. Then it appeared that the lieutenant was involved in a dishonourable intrigue and could only be extricated by paying blackmail; he must make presents to his fiancée and the jeweller’s bill must be settled; a house for the young couple must be furnished, and hence the abstraction of many articles from the home of the old Stromwalters, all of which were pawned by Thalreuter.