Whoever has anything against shoemakers and does not know how to appreciate their excellence individually and generally, let him keep away from me. Whoever goes so far as to turn up his nose at them contemptuously because of their often curious appearance, their crooked legs, their hard, black paws, their crazy noses, their unkempt tufts of hair, is no good to me; if he is lost I shall offer no reward for his return. I treasure and love shoemakers, and above them all I value the worthy Master Anton Unwirrsch, the father of Hans Jakob Nikolaus Unwirrsch. Alas, it was not long after those vesper bells had given greeting to his first and only born that the evening bells of his own day on earth began to ring. Yet there are so many threads of his life that run on into his son's that we cannot omit a description of his personality and being. Physically, as we already know, he stood not very firmly on his feet, but mentally he was straight and strong enough and could cope with many a man who thought himself far superior. All the relics of his hidden life show that he did his utmost to make up for the defects of a neglected education, that he had a thirst for knowledge--a very keen thirst. And even though he never learnt to spell quite correctly he yet possessed a poetic soul, like his celebrated fellow-craftsman from the "Mouse-trap" in Nuremberg, and read as much as he possibly could. Moreover, what he read he usually understood too; and if in some things he did not find the meaning that the author had intended, he got another meaning out of it or read it into it which belonged entirely to him alone and with which the author might very often be well content. Although he loved his trade and did not neglect it in any way it was no gold mine to him, and he remained a poor man. Golden dreams, however, his occupation did bring him, and all occupations that can do that are good and make those who practise them happy. Anton Unwirrsch saw the world from his cobbler's stool almost exactly as Hans Sachs had once seen it, but he did not become so famous. He left a little book in close, fine handwriting which his widow first kept like a sacred relic in the depths of her chest, together with her hymn book, bridal wreath and a little black box of which we shall hear more later on. As she would have a sacred relic, the mother delivered the little book over to her son and he gave it the place of honor in his library between the Bible and Shakespeare, although in poetry and content it ranks a little below these two. Auntie Schlotterbeck and Master Grünebaum had a vague suspicion of the existence of this manuscript, but only the poet's wife had definite knowledge of it. To her it was the most marvelous thing that could be imagined. For did it not rhyme "like the hymn book," and had not her husband written it? That was far beyond anything that the neighborhood could bring to light.