TITLE PAGE     GERMAN    

WHAT OR WHO WAS BOBBY BOX?

Well - what or who? Light must be shed on this! Bobby Box was an idea that wafted out of an ancient book of legends about human folly. The idea ascended into the skies, passed through the air over mountains and valleys, over all countries and cities, through the highest cliffs and the thickest walls, and across all the oceans until it came to the USA, got into the streets of Greenville, to finally land in the head of a poor painter living there high up somewhere in an attic. Here, in the depths of this artist's brain, the ancient idea of the fool in us humans took on new shape. The bohemien Babe Walker sprang up shouting: "I have it!", he stood at the empty wall and began to sing loudly:

Bingo - there's your man at last -
Crayons please to sketch him fast:
A bowler hat will make the start,
An artist's bow, for art is art.
Eyes big and languishing - ah me,
But that's the way it has to be.
Baggy trousers, jacket short,
Travelling case and stick for sport,
Waistcoat checkered, funny shoes -
Now let's stop and just peruse.

There! - The idea had now been recorded in a drawing on the wall. It was a person with all good and bad human traits, perhaps a bit of a clown, the figure of a comical young man. The painter wrote under the drawing: "Bobby Box". Why Bobby Box? - Because no other name fitted - judge for yourself! - - -

There was a knock at the door of the attic; - the bohemian got a fright: Was it the landlord? Was it the bailiff? He reached quickly for the duster to wipe the drawing off the wall. But the idea and the force of the living imagination had already given life to the drawing. The instinct of self-preservation had been awakened in "Bobby Box". Just as the little fly flies off our finger, so too did "Bobby Box" now flee from the duster. He was alive - he had taken on form and colour! - In a flash he had swept through the skylight over the roofs and way into the world.

  BOBBY BOX    FIRST ADVENTURE