Former actress, Adelheid Luise « Adele » Spitzeder (1832-1895) turned to the world of finance by founding the Spitzedersche Privatbank in Munich in 1869. The high rates of investment return soon made the bank famous, especially among the working classes in the northern suburbs of Munich (for which it was also called the "Dachau bank"). Spitzeder paid her customers with the investments of new entrants; because of this her business is sometimes considered to be the first known Ponzi scheme: it ended in a huge financial scandal in 1872. Among the large body of satirical work on the subject, the only surviving example of a puppet theatre was found in 1981 in the form of a manuscript from the collection of the puppeteer Gabriel Gailler: kept in the puppet collections of the Stadtmuseum in Munich, it was transcribed by Irena Raithel-Živsa for an in-house publication of the museum.

While all poor people on the outskirts of Munich deposit their savings in Adele Spitzeder's bank, sometimes even selling their businesses to live on their income, Kasperl is looking for a job. Through his brother Baldhauser (also known as Baldes), a door-to-door salesman, he was placed as a doorman at Adele Spitzeder's house. He introduces the bank's customers to the bank office, where she receives them with her proverbial frankness. But at the end of his first day on the job, the police come and arrest the banker for fraud and close the place down: Kasperl beats down the poor people who come to claim their money. The fourth act or epilogue is a picture of country life: following a quarrel with his wife, Kasperl's other brother, Melchior, goes drinking with the town crier. Kasperl and Baldes enter the stage to conclude the play with a song.