The young people, with whom in this way I formed a closer and closer connection, were not exactly of a low, but of an ordinary, type.  Their activity was commendable, and I listened to them with pleasure when they spoke of the manifold ways and means by which one could gain a living:  above all, they loved to tell of people, now very rich, who had begun with nothing.  Others to whom they referred had, as poor clerks, rendered themselves indispensable to their employers, and had finally risen to be their sons-in-law; while others had so enlarged and improved a little trade in matches and the like, that they were now prosperous merchants and tradesmen.  But above all, to young men who were active on their feet, the trade of agent and factor, and the undertaking of all sorts of commissions and charges for helpless rich men was, they said, a most profitable means of gaining a livelihood.  We all liked to hear this; and each one fancied himself somebody, when he imagined, at the moment, that there was enough in him, not only to get on in the world, but to acquire an extraordinary fortune.  But no one seemed to carry on this conversation more earnestly than Pylades, who at last confessed that he had an extraordinary passion for a girl, and was actually engaged to her.  The circumstances of his parents would not allow him to go to universities; but he had endeavored to acquire a fine handwriting, a knowledge of accounts and the modern languages, and would now do his best in hopes of attaining that domestic felicity.  His fellows praised him for this, although they did not approve of a premature engagement; and they added, that while forced to acknowledge him to be a fine, good fellow, they did not consider him active or enterprising enough to do any thing extraordinary.  While he, in vindication of himself, circumstantially set forth what he thought himself fit for, and how he was going to begin, the others were also incited; and each one began to tell what he was now able to do, doing, or carrying on, what he had already accomplished, and what he saw immediately before him.  The turn at last came to me.  I was to set forth my course of life and prospects; and, while I was considering, Pylades said, “I make this one proviso, lest we be at too great a disadvantage, that he does not bring into the account the external advantages of his position.  He should rather tell us a tale how he would proceed if at this moment he were thrown entirely upon his own resources, as we are.”

Gretchen, who till this moment had kept on spinning, rose, and seated herself as usual at the end of the table.  We had already emptied some bottles, and I began to relate the hypothetical history of my life in the best humor.  “First of all, then, I commend myself to you,” said I, “that you may continue the custom you have begun to bestow on me.  If you gradually procure me the profit of all the occasional poems, and we do not consume them in mere feasting, I shall soon come to something.