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I am afraid I seriously offended my worthy “principal,” on pleading my inability to persist in this kind of training. But he acquiesced in the desire to board myself, and generously made the additional payment of one dollar sixteen groschens, or five shillings per week, for the purpose.
Finding that my stock of cash was already reduced to the half of its original bulk, that I had indeed expended one pound, I seriously endeavoured to find employment in Dresden; but utterly failing in that hope, I claimed the “viaticum” of the Guild, which was ten silver groschens, or one shilling.
Beginning life in the new world as a rat-catcher, he soon acquired a gallon jug of Holland gin, a peck of Brummagem jewelry, and robbed the Aborigines right and left. He wore the same shirt the year 'round, slept with his dogs and invested his groschens in such Manhattan dirt as he could conveniently transport upon his person.
"I will have nothing that I don't pay for," said Charles Henry, proudly; "I can pay as well as the rest of you, and perhaps I have more money than all of you; for while you are drinking, smoking, and playing, I put my groschens aside for a rainy day." "Yes, that is true; Buschman is the most orderly, the most industrious of us all," said Fritz Kober, as he nodded lovingly to his young friend.
Add to these a rollicking saddler from Heldesheim, who figures in a full beard, a rich cluster of crisp, brown curls, his own especial pride, and the object of deep envy to his less hirsute companions; and who, far too fond of corn brandy-wine, goes about singing continually the song of the German tramp, “Ich Liebe das liederliche Leben!”—This vagabond life I delight in!—an earnest, quiet student, who, for reasons of economy, has made the Schuster-gasse his place of refuge; and a dishevelled button-maker, last from Hamburg, who has just received his geschenck, or trade-gift, amounting to fifteen silver groschens, about eighteenpence in English money; and who ponders drearily over it as it lies in the palm of his hand, wondering how far this slender sum will carry him on the road to Breslau, his native place, still some two hundred miles away.
Did we not expend two silver groschens in a programme of the races, and gloat over the spirited engraving of a “flying” something, which was its appropriate heading, and which you would swear was executed somewhere in the neighbourhood of Holywell Street, Strand?
“But,” we pursue our inquiries, “you have no short time, and are pensioned?—at least, so says our Fahrschein.” “We are paid our wages during sickness, and are never out of work. When we can no longer use the pick, nor climb these staircases, we can retire upon our pension of eight silver groschens a week.” Tenpence! Magnificent independence! This is digging for silver with a vengeance.
The same quantity, in the very heart of the Saxon forests, that is, at Schandau, in Saxon Switzerland, costs four dollars and four groschens. Nor would it be procurable even at this price, were not the proprietors of forest lands particularly zealous in protecting their woods from injury, and in replanting such spaces as the axe of the woodman may, from time to time, lay bare.
I perched them on a little hillock with their toes pointing towards Vienna, and turned round more than once as we advanced, to give another farewell look to such faithful and long companions. After a refreshing sleep on the road-side, we entered Vienna early in the afternoon. Hannibal was no richer than I was, and my whole stock consisted of six groschens, a sum equal to threepence.
We had a pint of indifferent Rhine wine from him, which cost us a dollar, and we purchased a couple of long sticks, for which we paid twenty groschens more. But we were not induced, by his suggestions that sunrise and sunset were both exceeding glorious when watched from such a situation, to spend the night under his roof.
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