the following trick brought me good luck: When a rich man, having committed an evil deed, has been ill spoken of by the prince, &c., then I gave him to understand how great was the anger of the prince against him, and that it might cost him his life if he did not employ me in the business. If he agreed, I concealed his guilt; or, at least, helped him out of it. But if he did not, I would institute a suit against him, and he was exposed to danger and death. If he endeavoured to succeed, through the means of attorneys, in spite of me, I would make use of all my cunning to prevail against and ruin him. When the fox's skin did not answer, I assumed that of the lion; what I could not acquire by wiles and cunning, I usurped _de facto_, and discovered how I could obtain by violence. If any one complained of the old chancellor, and wished to bring a suit against him at court, I offered to submit myself to a judicial action, for the councillors, as colleagues, were on my side. I displaced in village and field the boundary stone, made other ditches and frontier lines, squeezed out of my neighbours some hundred _morgens_ of arable land, meadows, and woods. In like manner I laid hands on the property of rich widows, orphans, and wards; bought rents and perpetual leases, and lent out money which, in three years, was doubled. It would be tedious to relate the gains I made by assignments, bills of exchange, wine, corn, and salt traffic.' "All this the son-in-law listened to with great attention, and said, 'Noble father, you have well administered for your family, and brought it into prosperity; but the question is whether your descendants will prosper so as to inherit it in the third or fourth generation; for "ill-gotten gains seldom prosper."' "'That signifies as little to me as a midge on the wall. Let any one say what he will, I, on the other hand, have what I will. He who would gain something must venture something, and not mind what people say. I have revealed and confided to you more than to my own wife and children. Now come home with me to supper.'" Such is the purport of the sad irony of the flying sheet, which is peculiarly appropriate here, as it evidently gives expression to the common sentiments of the time. At the conclusion of it one particular intrigue of a small German court is more alluded to than related.