Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/393

 investigation, I could not speak without seriously compromising him. Thus I felt in submitting to praise as one who accepts credit for some things, at least, done by others, and this feeling was in a high degree painful to me. Moreover, in every company in which I showed myself I was asked time and again: “How did you succeed in carrying out this bold stroke? Tell us.” Inasmuch as I could not tell the whole truth, I preferred to tell nothing. New legends were invented which if possible were still more fantastic than the old ones. This was so oppressive to me that I became very much averse to going into society, and I fear that I sometimes repelled those who came to me and pressed me with questions in an almost unfriendly manner.

To bring the narrative of this episode to a conclusion, I must add something about the further fortunes of those who coöperated with me in the Kinkel rescue. On the day after Kinkel's escape from Spandau, suspicion fell at once upon Brune. He was forthwith arrested and subjected to close examination. At first nothing could be proved against him; but then, so it was reported, they placed with him in his cell a detective whom he did not suspect and to whom in a careless way he confided his story. He was thereupon tried and condemned to three years' imprisonment. After he had served his term he removed with his family to his old home in Westphalia, where, with the money he had received from me, and which had not been discovered, he could comfortably live with his family, and where he enjoyed the respect of his neighbors. When in 1888 I visited Germany I was informed by a friend of Brune's, that Brune was at the time a janitor in a great iron-works in Westphalia, that he was doing well, although he began to feel the infirmities of old age, and that he would like to know something about me. I answered at once, giving