It goes without saying that I was engulfed in joy. A gipsy drummer! A count's daughter! Shiny buttons! A white feather! Going three times around the entire stage! Fife new-groschen! The following night, I slept very little and arrived very punctually at the rehearsal. It worked out very well. All of the artists liked me. The manager's wife petted my cheek. The manager commended me on my intelligent face, my courage, and my swift comprehension; but after all, he said, my part was rather easy. Perhaps I could do it for just forty pfennig; even thirty pfennig would be a generous salary. But father was with me and did not yield a single pfennig, because he had realized my artistic value and was not inclined to haggle. For these fifty pfennig, I had to appear only once, to lead the big parade of the gipsies. I stood by the scenery with all of the gipsies behind me. On the opposite side of the scenery stood the director, who also played the role of Pedro, the old overseer of the castle. When he lifted his right hand, this was the sign for me to start the parade immediately and to disappear back to the same spot in the scenery, after having marched three times across the stage. This was so childishly easy; it was impossible to go wrong. I was given the shiny buttons right after the rehearsal. Mother had to sew them to my clothes. There were more than thirty of them; she had a hard time fitting them all on my waistcoat. In the course of the afternoon, the hat with the white feather was brought to me. It was hung out of the window for publicity and worked its effect. I had to arrive a quarter of an hour before the beginning of the show. I was received be the manager's wife with a bright smile, because the room was already thus full that some "box-seats" were quickly improvised in front, at a price of ten new-groschen per seat. They were also swiftly sold. Father, mother, and grandmother had been given free seats. After all, I was a most valuable little person on that day. This realization was so generally accepted that the manager's wife deemed it necessary, to put my five new-groschen into the right pocket of my trousers, before the curtain had even risen for the first time. This increased my confidence and my artistic enthusiasm enormously.