"My wife is going to see Dr. Klenke on September the 1st, to get a small amount he owes us. She will use this opportunity to pay you your royalties. You have my written promise that I will give you 1 percent of the money which I will obtain from H.V. or Dr. M. (May) on account of your intervention. You will receive the money right away . . . . "Friendly greetings Lebius." This refers to the fact that he owed Max Dittrich royalties in the amount of 37 marks and 45 pfennigs, which he, though this amount was very small, was unable to pay. As a consequence of this, a mirror has been seized from his house by the court. When he received an order to pay the 37 marks and 45 from Dittrich instead of my 10.000 marks, he wrote to him on September the 3rd: "Dear Mr. Dittrich! "I have urged Mr. Klenke M.D. to pass the amount of 40 marks from my account to you. Your behaviour towards me strikes me as most peculiar, perhaps even insulting. "Sincerely R. Lebius." But this Dr. Klenke also never considered paying the debts of Mr. Lebius, and thus it was only logical and consequential that on September the 7th, the following threat reached me in the form of a postcard: "Dear Sir! "A certain Mr. Lebius, editor of the `Sachsenstimme', has told another gentleman that he was writing an article against you. I have just overheard it in a restaurant. A friend is warning you of this man. "B." Of course, I was instantly fully aware of the author and the purpose of this card. The report of the court's _sworn_experts_ also states _that_nobody_but_Lebius,_in_his_own_hand,_could_have_ _written_it._ Obviously, he quite definitely expected me to pay the 10.000 marks in response to this extortion. If I would not pay up, I could not just be sure of the vengeful article he threatened to write now, but even of more of the kind and other things as well; this had to worry me. But even now, I did not respond and was facing the unavoidable article with a clear conscience, which appeared on September the 11th, 1904, in number 33 of Lebius's paper, the "Sachsenstimme", and bore the triple headline: | "More light on Karl May | | 160.000 marks income for a novelist | | A famous author of colportage from Dresden." |