It was not long before Fritz, a clerk with six hundred francs, and Wilhelm, a book-keeper with precisely the same salary, discovered the difficulties of existence in a city so full of temptations.  In 1837, the second year of their abode, Wilhelm, who possessed a pretty talent for the flute, entered Pons’ orchestra, to earn a little occasional butter to put on his dry bread.  As to Fritz, his only way to an increase of income lay through the display of the capacity for business inherited by a descendant of the Virlaz family.  Yet, in spite of his assiduity, in spite of abilities which possibly may have stood in his way, his salary only reached the sum of two thousand francs in 1843.  Penury, that divine stepmother, did for the two men all that their mothers had not been able to do for them; Poverty taught them thrift and worldly wisdom; Poverty gave them her grand rough education, the lessons which she drives with hard knocks into the heads of great men, who seldom know a happy childhood.  Fritz and Wilhelm, being but ordinary men, learned as little as they possibly could in her school; they dodged the blows, shrank from her hard breast and bony arms, and never discovered the good fairy lurking within, ready to yield to the caresses of genius.  One thing, however, they learned thoroughly—­they discovered the value of money, and vowed to clip the wings of riches if ever a second fortune should come to their door.

This was the history which Wilhelm Schwab related in German, at much greater length, to his friend the pianist, ending with;

“Well, Papa Schmucke, the rest is soon explained.  Old Brunner is dead.  He left four millions!  He made an immense amount of money out of Baden railways, though neither his son nor M. Graff, with whom we lodge, had any idea that the old man was one of the original shareholders.  I am playing the flute here for the last time this evening; I would have left some days ago, but this was a first performance, and I did not want to spoil my part.”

“Goot, mine friend,” said Schmucke.  “But who is die prite?”

“She is Mlle. Graff, the daughter of our host, the landlord of the Hotel du Rhin.  I have loved Mlle. Emilie these seven years; she has read so many immoral novels, that she refused all offers for me, without knowing what might come of it.  She will be a very wealthy young lady; her uncles, the tailors in the Rue de Richelieu, will leave her all their money.  Fritz is giving me the money we squandered at Strasbourg five times over!  He is putting a million francs in a banking house, M. Graff the tailor is adding another five hundred thousand francs, and Mlle. Emilie’s father not only allows me to incorporate her portion—­two hundred and fifty thousand francs—­with the capital, but he himself will be a shareholder with as much again.  So the firm of Brunner, Schwab and Company will start with two millions five hundred thousand francs.  Fritz has just bought fifteen hundred thousand francs’ worth of shares in the Bank of France to guarantee our account with them.  That is not all Fritz’s fortune.  He has his father’s house property, supposed to be worth another million, and he has let the Grand Hotel de Hollande already to a cousin of the Graffs.”