o bite the grass," replied the pedlar, with a
scornful side glance: "the dogs, as you call them, did make a sally, in
spite of the Greeks, and made their leader prisoner, and----"

"Samares prisoner?" cried the rawbone man, startled out of his
tranquillity; "you are not right again, friend!"

"No?" answered the other, quietly; "I heard the bells toll, as he was
buried in the church of Saint George."

The burghers looked attentively at the thin stranger, to notice the
impression this news would make on him. His thick eyebrows fell so low
that his eyes were scarcely visible; he twisted his long thin
mustachios, and striking the table with his bony hand, said: "And if
they have cut him and his Greeks into a hundred pieces, the besieged
can't help themselves! the castle must fall; and when Tuebingen is ours,
good night to Wuertemburg! Ulerich is out of the country, and my noble
friends and benefactors will be the masters."

"How do you know that he will not come back again? and then----" said
the cautious fat man, and clapped on the cover of his goblet.

"What! come back again?" cried the other: "the beggar! who says he will
come back again? Who dares say it?"

"What does it signify to us?" murmured the guests; "we are peaceable
citizens; and it is all the same to us who is lord of the land,
provided the taxes are lowered. In a public house a man has a right to
say what he pleases."

The thin man appeared satisfied that none of the company dared return
an angry answer. He eyed each of them with a searching look, when,
assuming a kinder manner, he said, "It was only to put you in mind,
that we do not want the Duke any longer as our master that I speak as I
do; upon my soul, he is rank poison to me; so I'll sing you a
_paternoster_, which a friend wrote upon him, and which pleases me
much." The honest burghers, by their looks, did not appear very curious
to hear a burlesque song upon their unfortunate Duke. The other,
however, having cleared his throat with a good draught, began a few
words of a burlesque parody on the Lord's Prayer, in a disagreeable
hoarse tone of voice--a vulgar song, apparently familiar to the ears of
his audience--for no sooner had he commenced, than the good taste of
the burghers manifested itself by a whisper of disapprobation; some
shrugging their shoulders, others winking at each other; symptoms
sufficiently evident to the thin man, that the burden of his song was
not welcome to their ears. H