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happiness of their children as well as other detriment.

"For there were then in Stralsund two women who might not unjustly be
called swindlers; the one was named Lubbe Kesske, the other Engeln;
they both dwelt in the Altbuesser Strasse. They bought divers kinds of
cloth from my father, which they again sold to others, but it was not
known to whom. Sometimes they paid part of the money for the cloth; but
whenever they gave a hundred gulden, they straightway bought to the
amount of two hundred or more. When, however, his claim upon them
became very large, the women only being able to pay twenty gulden, he
inquired what had become of his property; he found that his goods to
the amount of seventeen hundred and twenty-five gulden had gone to the
wife of the tailor Hermann Bruser, who had a considerable traffic in
cloth, being able to sell it cheaper in retail than other cloth
merchants; and that his eight hundred gulden had found their way to the
mother of Jacob Leweling. When my father called to account the two
women and the wife of Bruser, the latter and her husband, Hermann
Bruser, offered to pay: Bruser assured my father under his hand and
seal that at fixed terms he would make the payment. See what happened!
The first term was due at the time of the uproar of Burgomaster Herr
Nicholaus Smiterlow, and Hermann Bruser, who was one of the principal
ringleaders, thought it was now all over with my father, as well as
with the burgomaster; so he disclaimed his bond, refused payment, and
began a lawsuit with my father which lasted more than four-and-thirty
years; my father came to terms with the heirs of Bruser, who had to pay
for one and all a thousand gulden. The debt itself had amounted to
seventeen hundred and twenty-five gulden, and my father's costs to
upwards of a thousand more. Thus my father was deprived of his money
for forty years; great inconvenience accrued to both parents and
children. I thereby lost my studies and my brother, Magister Johannes,
even his life, so that one may in truth say, that Hesiod's words, 'The
half is more than the whole,' may well be applied to a lawsuit,
particularly to one at the Imperial court, so that it would be more
profitable to be satisfied with the half in the beginning than to
obtain the whole by the sentence of the Imperial court.

"During the lawsuit my brother Johannes became Magister at Wittenberg,
where he was the first among thirteen, and my parents summoned him
home. Be