Though, Karl May insists on being truthful in this book, one should not approach it without scepticism. It is particularly hard to believe that all of his repeated deceptions, assuring his readers that his fictional adventure stories were based on fact, were all just designed to set the scene for some great work, he was all the time planning to write at some later point in his life. Probably, his mind just sought a way to escape his unpleasant past and his present problems with his failing marriage to his first wife by retreating into the fictional persona of the protagonist of his novels. Furthermore, there are many details where May's memory might have proven slightly unreliable or which he might intentionally or subconsciously try to conceal. For instance, his description of the events due to which he was thrown out of the boarding school completely contradicts the version found in the school's files. He writes that before Christmas he had to clean the candlesticks and kept the tallow he scratched off of them, to make small candles from it, to be used as Christmas decorations. He was watched by a fellow student, who reported this theft of what Karl May regarded as garbage to the principal. According to the school's files, it happened like this: In November, Karl May had to clean the candlesticks and to replace the burnt down candles. Two weeks later, two older students found six complete candles in his unlocked suitcase. They turned them over to the student who was in charge of the candles for that week, but agreed not to tell the teachers. Shortly before Christmas, accusations are made that, at two occasions, money had been stolen. The students who had found the candles came forward and were reprimanded by the teachers for having covered the matter up before. The question of the stolen money was never resolved.