A musical instrument-maker of Bremen was on the point of failure, and
his creditors watched him so close, that he could not get a pin’s worth
carried away. He bethought himself of a singular stratagem for deceiving
his watchmen. He got together about a hundred and fifty musicians, his
friends, in the shop, and set them all playing with the different
instruments there, the overture of the “Gazza Ladra.” As it was night,
at each movement of the orchestra, he contrived to throw some article of
furniture from the back window, and the fall was so managed, that, from
the noise of the instruments, no one perceived it. At last, to finish
the affair so happily begun, at the end of the concert, each musician
went out with his instrument. The artist went out last, and locked the
shop-door, leaving nothing to his creditors but a bust of Ramus.