TITLE PAGE     GERMAN    

e will have to get used to being hungry" and: "If we sleep on the floor, we can't fall far!" - This was the wisdom which Frank declaimed to his faithful companion Florian, a brown Airedale terrier, gesticulating comically in order to cheer him up. They were both sitting with rumbling stomachs at the empty table. They had taken up lodgings in a wooden shed they had found in an abandoned allotment about half an hour's walk from Chicago. The cause of all the trouble was Frank's taste for adventure. He had always hung around in the docks in Hamburg, watching the departing ships with great longing. Slaps and scoldings didn't provide a cure. One fine day, being unable to overcome his wanderlust and desire to travel, he stowed away in the hold of a huge ocean steamer. Florian jumped aboard after him at the last minute. So that was how they had both crossed the water and got to New York. From New York the two runaways made their way through the United States to Chicago on the Pacific Railway without being found out. And here they were now, without a soul to help then and with nothing to eat. Everything was empty. Even a mouse would have starved in the bread bin. Frank and Florian felt their insides in turmoil and everything they saw seemed to be spinning, reeling and whirling around. Saucepans, frying pans, the flour jar, sugar pot, milk can, bread basket, plates, spoons, mugs leapt around them, doing a proper Indian dance. They couldn't take it any more, rushed to the door and made off without having a destination. One has no choice but to abandon oneself to the whims of chance. Indeed, one cannot plan if one is as hungry as Frank and Florian: one simply hopes for magic and miracles. And lo and behold! there was the first miracle! A large roast goose was lying under a tree: it was golden-brown and crisp, and the knife and fork were already to hand in the round haunches. Go for it! But once they approached, they saw it was only a pitiful little sparrow lying on its back, dead. "It will have died of hunger!" said Frank, full of sympathy, and Florian waggled his ears in agreement. But then they found something else - a parcel. They both made for it. But it was only a bundle of old newspapers. Frank picked it up in disappointment and read the first headline that caught his eye: "Dinner for you!" There was a lovely picture next to it: oysters, lobster, caviar and many other delicacies.

  THAT'S SUCCESS!    SECTION TWO