"Now the first is this: since I first weathered winter's snow and summer's dust on this good Mother Earth of ours, I never before met a man who was frightened at money. I see him for the first time to-day. You were positively averse to keeping my gold. Nay, I believe that you wanted to break my head on account of it. And now I find you have no sweetheart, you neither drink nor gamble; you fraternise with no one. That again is something quite unheard-of. And finally, a man will not dot the 'i' of another person's writing, that also is something out of the common, let me tell you." "Well for one word I think that is long enough--what else?" "The second concerns myself. As truly as that I yesterday was 'Rothesel,' and to-day am 'Rotheisel,' so surely is it that Rotheisel won't neglect a treasure which Rothesel has discovered. I know of a treasure, in fine, for the carrying off of which, as in the fairy tales, only clean hands can avail." "I don't understand what you are talking about." "Well, I do. There is a treasure lying buried in a certain place, a solid heap of more than a hundred thousand ducats, on the track of which I would set a champion." "I still do not understand. To whom does this goodly hoard belong?" "This money has been wrung from the sweat and blood of the poor and the oppressed, nay, squeezed out of ragged and hunger-bitten wretches, moistened by the tears of widows and orphans, purloined, and concealed from the Crown. It is the people of your native town, good sir, whose misery has augmented this treasure, and who starve and complain for the lack of it, while beggars swarm throughout the country. If this sort of thing goes on, the whole State must go to the dogs. I know what I am talking about, and will gladly lead you to the hoard. When you are in a position to rescue it from the dragon's clutches, two-thirds of it will go back to the poor wretched folk it was wrung from, and a third to enrich the man who restores it." "But if you know all this, why not do it yourself?" questioned his listener.