The town-clerk bowed respectfully to his literary colleagues, laid hold of a rusty bunch of keys, and opened the small vault of the city hall, where the ancient records, covered with thick dust, awaited the time in which their quiet life was to be ended under the stamping machine of a paper mill. The town-clerk had some knowledge of the papers; he understood fully the importance of the communication which was expected from him, but assured them with perfect truth that, owing to two fires in the town and the disorders of former times, every old history had been lost. There were also no records to be found in any private house; only in the printed chronicles of a neighboring town some notices were preserved concerning the fate of Rossau in the Thirty Years' War. After the war, the place had been left a heap of ruins and almost uninhabited. Since that time the town had lived along without a history, and the town-clerk assured them that nothing was known here of the olden time, and no one cared about it. Perhaps something about the town might be learnt at the Capital. Our friends continued to walk unweariedly from one intelligent man to another, making inquiries, as in the fairy tale, after the bird with the golden feather. Two little gnomes had known nothing, but now there remained a third--so they went to the Roman Catholic priest. A little old gentleman received them with profound bows. The Professor explained to him, that he was seeking information concerning the ultimate fate of the monastery--above all, what had happened in his closing years to the last monk, the venerable Tobias Bachhuber. "In those days no register of deaths was required," replied the ecclesiastic. "Therefore, my dear sirs, I cannot promise to give you any information. Yet, if it is only a question of yourselves, and you do not wish to extract anything from the old writings disadvantageous to the Church, I am willing to show you the oldest of the existing books." He went into a room and brought out a long thin book, the edges of which had been injured by the mould of the damp room. "Here are some notices of my predecessors who rest with the Lord; perhaps they may be useful to the gentlemen. More I cannot do, because there is nothing else of the kind existing." On the introductory page there was a register of the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the place in Latin. One of the first notices was: "In the year of our Lord 1637, and in the month of May, our venerated brother Tobias Bachhuber, the last monk of this monastery, died of the plague. The Lord be merciful to him." The Professor showed the passage silently to his friend the Doctor, who wrote down the Latin words; they then returned the book with thanks and took their leave.