THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
tell that you are here.” I blushed over and over in accepting the flowers and expressed my thanks. I put no further questions, for I did not doubt who the girl must be.
Before many days the number of my friends who had been informed of my presence was so large, and the danger that I might be betrayed by some accidental conversation between them became so great, that I thought it necessary to disappear. In response to my request my cousin, Heribert Jüssen, whose passport and name I bore, came to Bonn with his vehicle to take me during the night to Cologne. The parting from my parents and sisters was very sad, but after all they let me go in a comparatively cheerful state of mind. I left with them the same impression I had left with my friends in Switzerland—that I was exclusively engaged in business entrusted to me in Zürich. But we often talked about Kinkel's dreadful lot, and my parents repeatedly and emphatically expressed the hope that someone might be found to make an attempt to rescue him. Although they probably did not have me in mind when saying this, still it was sufficient to convince me that they would approve of my being that one. When I left Bonn nobody knew of my purpose except Frau Kinkel.
In Cologne I found quarters in the upper story of a restaurant which was kept by a zealous democrat. My friend the “Red Becker,” the democratic editor, was there my special protector and confidant. I had made his acquaintance at the university. He was indeed at that time no longer a student. His examinations he had passed long before, but he was fond of visiting his Burschenschaft, the Allemania, in the old way; and nobody possessed a merrier humor and a more inexhaustible sitting power at the convivial meetings than he. Everybody knew and loved him. His nickname, the “Red Becker,” he owed to a peculiarity of appearance. He had thin
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