far oftener than killed," replied the other. "If
the devil challenges me I shall ask: Foils, sir, or Spanish swords? But
there's one person I do fear, and that's my best and at the same time
my worst friend, a Netherlander, like yourself, the man who rides here
beside you. Yes, when rage seizes upon me, when my beard begins to
tremble, my small share of sense flies away as fast as your doves when
you let them go. You don't know me, Wilhelm."

"Don't I? How often must one see you in command and visit you in the
fencing-room?"

"Pooh, pooh--there I'm as quiet as the water in yonder ditch--but when
anything goes against the grain, when--how shall I explain it to you,
without similes?"

"Go on."

"For instance, when I am obliged to see a sycophant treated as if he
were Sir Upright--"

"So that vexes you greatly?"

"Vexes? No! Then I grow as savage as a tiger, and I ought not to be so,
I ought not. Roland, my foreman, probably likes--"

"Meister, Meister, your beard is beginning to tremble already!"

"What did the Glippers think, when their aristocratic cloaks--"

"The landlord took yours and mine from the fire entirely on his own
responsibility."

"I don't care! The crook-legged ape did it to honor the Spanish
sycophant. It enraged me, it was intolerable."

"You didn't keep your wrath to yourself, and I was surprised to see how
patiently the baron bore your insults."

"That's just it, that's it!" cried the fencing-master, while his beard
began to twitch violently. "That's what drove me out of the tavern,
that's why I took to my heels. That--that--Roland, my fore man."

"I don't understand you."

"Don't you, don't you? How should you; but I'll explain. When you're
as old as I am, young man, you'll experience it too. There are few
perfectly sound trees in the forest, few horses without a blemish, few
swords without a stain, and scarcely a man who has passed his fortieth
year that has not a worm in his breast. Some gnaw slightly, others
torture with sharp fangs, and mine--mine.--Do you want to cast a glance
in here?"

The fencing-master struck his broad chest as he uttered these words and,
without waiting for his companion's reply, continued:

"You know me and my life, Herr Wilhelm. What do I do, what do I
practise? Only chivalrous work.

"My life is based upon the sword. Do you know a better blade or surer
hand than mine? Do my soldiers obey me? Have I spared my blood in
fighting before the red walls an