A dim foreboding seemed to tell the proud
colonel what rival he had to contend with, and the recollection of the
handsome insolent groom and the scene with the spur began to assume the
shape of a suspicion which produced ill humour. This was expressed in
many contemptuous observations concerning low-born persons, and his
scorn at their desire to force their way into the upper classes daily
wearied the patience of old Talander, who entertained very high notions
of his own worth as a man. When it happened upon one occasion that the
colonel in his presence boasted rather too complacently to the Fraeulein
of his hereditary privileges, the old man commenced reading a passage
from a poem which an old collegian had sent him from Halle, running
thus:[3]

"Ye who prefer your dross to silver pure and fine,
And think your glass as good as diamonds from the mine;
I mean you, who in lists of ancestors take pride,
And seem so many noughts set other noughts beside;
Who worship that vain idol--old nobilitie,
Ye truly are besotted--I pray ye, pardon me."

The colonel looked with eyes of wonder, which, in spite of the
_captatio benevolentiae_ in the concluding line, expressed no
forgiveness, at the daring magister who, however, was not silent, but
continued reading.

"The flags your sires have left, of what avail are they?
And what avails the plume that decks your arms so gay?
The helm and shield bequeath'd by men who liv'd of yore,
The burnish'd arms ye keep a thousand years in store,
Are vanities; and he that's wise will say, indeed,
When real worth appears they must perforce recede."

At this the colonel left the room in a blustering manner as if he
anticipated the sixteen lines of the poem which were yet to come, and
with which Talander intended to treat him. The door closed after him
with a great noise, and a pressure of the Fraeulein's hand thanked the
grey knight who had so victoriously beaten that powerful enemy of her
secret wishes out of the field.

But this satisfaction was not of long duration. The colonel,
despairing of obtaining the hand of his chosen one, in the modern way,
that is to say, by his own powers of persuasion, chose the ancient
plan, and called to his aid paternal authority. Poor Starschedel had
to maintain a difficult position between the importunity of the noble
suitor, the tears of his daughter, and the _veto_ of Talander who, with
the eloquence of a confessor, impo