Living in an old dilapidated house in one of the back streets of his native town he contrived to drive a prosperous trade; but throughout his whole life declared he was miserably poor.
He was plagued by a number of poor relations, some of whom, it is believed, robbed him.
Anyway, in the last closing years of his life, he was under the impression that his rapacious relatives would send him out of the world before his time.
This thought haunted him by day and by night.
He was eccentric to the last degree. He grew old and feeble, and prior to his last illness he unfastened the back of his looking glass and laid the notes carefully on the silvering at the back of the plate.
This done, he replaced the backboard in its original position, and felt a grim satisfaction at glancing at the glass on the table by the side of his bed, upon which he shortly breathed his last.
As a matter of course after his decease the house was pretty well filled with his relatives.
A search was made for a will; none could be found. The effects he left behind, however, realised a considerable sum.
The distribution of this was the occasion of a wrangle, and the acrimonious feeling evinced by some of his heirs was in no way creditable to them. The property left by old Schreiber was sold by public auction.
A tradesman in the town bought several articles of household furniture. Among them was the looking-glass containing the notes. The tradesman afterwards became bankrupt, his furniture was sold off, and a broker bought two lots, in one of which the glass was included.