I have already said that Münchmeyer knew about my prior convictions. He even knew all the lies which had been added to them. He wished very much that I would write a novel about this; but I rejected this most decisively. In the circle of his friends and acquaintances, I have not kept my past secret, but rather I have told them about it without any reservations and explained in detail my views on criminals and crimes, guilt, punishment, and the penal system. Not a single member of the Münchmeyer family has a right to pretend not to have known about this. The workers of the company found out about it, too, the typesetters, printers, and all others, as well as the authors, contributing to the publications. "May has been punished; he has been to prison", they said, sometimes quietly, sometimes louder, but soon spreading everywhere. Thus, it is fundamentally wrong to start talking about sudden "revelations" or even about my "unmasking", now. Whoever pretends that he had unmasked me, is lying. It is an important fact that Münchmeyer had a rather pronounced preference for working with previously convicted people in particular, for certain business reasons. Going through the list of authors, both men and women, who have written for him, the percentage of those with a criminal record is rather significant. I already noticed this very soon after I had joined his company. Walter [a], his main factotum, to whom he assigned all the task nobody else was allowed to know about, had prior convictions as well. Very soon after I had taken over as editor, he brought in a former official of the postal services from Vienna, who had embezzled money, to be one of my co-workers. When similar cases occurred repeatedly and I asked him for his reasons, he answered: "An author who has been punished can be made to put up with anything, because he fears that his criminal record will be disclosed." "So, this also includes me?!" I exclaimed, astonished at such an honesty. "Nonsense!" he replied. "With you, the matter is entirely different. We are friends! And after all, you're no ordinary man, who would put up with anything! Even if I would not honestly care about you, any attempt to cross you would have to fail!" He tried his best to remove the mistrust which had arisen in me, but it could not be made to disappear entirely and was a contributing factor in my resignation, when I left my job as an editor on account of that proposal of marriage. Later, when after the time of six years I started to write the "Waldröschen" for him, these second thoughts against him resurfaced again in me. But the exceptional position, he granted me in his personal life and in his business, the exceptional royalties he payed me, and most of all the objections my wife made at every opportunity against my distrust, all of this influenced me so that I finally returned to my previous trust in him.