Master Flea by E.T.A. Hoffmann

The mistake of the watchman in arresting Mr. George Pepusch for a thief was soon explained. In the meantime, however, some informalities had been discovered in his passport, and for this reason they required that he should produce some resident citizen of Frankfurt as his bail, till when he must be contented with his present place in prison.

Here then sat Mr. George Pepusch in a very neat room, meditating on whom he could find in Frankfurt to be his bail. He had been away so long that he feared he must be forgotten by those who had formerly known him well, and, as to foreign recommendations, he possessed none whatever. He began to look out of the window in a very melancholy mood, and cursed his fate aloud, when a window was opened close by him, and a voice exclaimed, "What! do I see right? Is it you, George? " Mr. Pepusch was not a little astonished on perceiving the friend, with whom he had been most intimate during his residence at Madras. "The deuce! " he exclaimed, "that I should be so forgetful, so utterly stupid! I knew that you had got safely into harbour, and in Hamburg heard strange things of your way of living, and, when I had got here, never thought of paying you a visit. But he who has such wonderful things in his head as I have -- Well, it is lucky that accident brought you to me! You see I am under arrest, but you can immediately set me free, by answering for my being really the George Pepusch, whom you knew years ago, and not a thief nor a robber."