"The poor colonel had a wife and a large family of children; he did not understand how to make the best of his small income, nor to improve it by other employment, so that he was at last reduced to what was little short of beggary and starvation.  Day after day he placed himself in the royal ante-chamber and begged an audience; but the king would not hear him, and one day got into a towering passion when the officer-in-waiting ventured to utter the poor man's name in the king's presence.  At last the colonel grew desperate.  He could not make up his mind to beg; his wife was ill, his children starving,--what was he to do?  He hit upon the curious idea of getting relief for his family by putting up, unobserved, in the night time, at the corners of the streets in Berlin, placards breathing the most venomous abuse of the king, in the hope that a reward would be offered to the person who should disclose who was the writer of the placard, that he might then himself claim the reward by informing against himself, and so might relieve the immediate pressing necessities of his wife and children, whatever might be the personal suffering and consequences to himself.