s sort of way.'

"As he said this, he looked piercingly at the lad, who cast down
bashful eyes of blue. They went with Traugott to his office, where the
money was paid over to the old man, who put it in his purse with a face
of gloom. Whilst this was going on, the lad said to Traugott:

"'Was it not you who were drawing so cleverly a week or two ago in the
Artus Hof?'

"Yes,' said Traugott, while the colour came to his cheeks as he
remembered the letter of advice.

"'Oh, then,' said the lad, 'I'm not surprised----'

"The old man looked at him angrily, and he stopped at once. Traugott
couldn't help a certain embarrassment in their presence, so that they
were gone before he managed to ask where they lived, etc., etc. The
looks of them had something so marvellous about them that even the
people in the office were struck by it.

"The surly book-keeper stuck his pen behind his ear and stared at the
old man, with his arms crossed behind his head.

"God bless my soul!' he cried, when the couple had gone out, 'that chap
with the curly beard and the black cloak looks like an old picture of
the year 1400 in the church of St. John.'

"But Herr Elias took him for a Polish Jew, notwithstanding his
aristocratic bearing, and his grave, thoughtful, old-German face.

"'Stupid brute!' he cried. 'Sells his paper now, and would get at least
ten per cent, more for it this day week!' Of course he didn't know that
Traugott was going to pay him the difference out of his own pocket;
which he did some days afterwards, when he came across the old man and
the lad in the Artus Hof again.

"'My son,' said the old man, 'has reminded me that you are a
brother-artist; therefore I have accepted this service from you, which
otherwise I should not have done.'

"They were standing beside one of the four granite pillars which
support the vaulted roof of the hall, and close to the figures which
Traugott had drawn in the letter of advice. He spoke, without
hesitation, of the extraordinary likeness of these figures to the old
man and the lad. The old man gave a strange smile, laid his hand on
Traugott's shoulder, and said, in a low voice of some caution:

"'You are not aware, then, that I am Godfredus Berklinger, the German
painter, and that I painted the figures which you seem to admire a very
long time ago, when I was quite a young student of my art? I painted my
own portrait as the Burgomaster, as a _souvenir_, and that the page
leading the h