n their need.
His meditations are interrupted by the arrival of the landlord, who,
seeing the two knapsacks, and recognizing one of them as that of his
son, naturally supposes the owner to be his offspring, in which belief
he is {112} confirmed by Schwarzbart, who is induced to practice this
deceit, partly by the desire of getting a good dinner and the means of
quenching his insatiable thirst, partly by the hope of something
turning up in favour of his companion in arms, Wilhelm. As a matter of
fact the knapsack does not belong to Wilhelm at all. On leaving the
inn, at which the banquet following the wedding of one of their
comrades, had been held, the knapsacks had inadvertently been exchanged
much to Wilhelm's dismay, his own containing a lottery ticket which, as
he has just learnt, had won a great prize. The supposed son is of
course received with every demonstration of affection by his fond
parent, but though submitting with a very good grace to the endearments
of his supposed sister--the maiden, with whom he had fallen in love so
suddenly--he resolutely declines being hugged and made much of by the
old landlord, this double-part being entirely distasteful to his
straightforward nature. Nor does his affianced bride, the daughter of
the bailiff, fare any better, his affections being placed elsewhere,
and their bewilderment is only somewhat appeased by Schwarzbart's
explanation that his comrade suffers occasionally from weakness of the
brain.

In the next act Peter, a youth of marvellous stupidity and cousin of
the bailiff, presents himself in a woful plight, to which he has been
reduced by some soldiers at the same wedding festivities, and shortly
after Gustav, the real son appears on the scene. He is a manly fellow,
full of tender {113} thoughts for his home. Great is therefore his
surprise at finding himself repulsed by his own father, who not
recognizing him, believes him to be an impostor. All the young man's
protestations are of no avail, for in his knapsack are found the papers
of a certain Wilhelm Stark, for whom he is now mistaken.--When silly
Peter perceives him, he believes him to be the Grenadier, who had so
ill-treated him at the wedding, though in reality it was Schwarzbart.
Gustav is shut up in a large garden-house of his father's; the small
town lacking a prison.

In the third act the Magistrate has found out that Wilhelm's papers
prove him to be the bailiff's son, being the offspring of his f