rk that it would suit even a king, placed it on his own
royal head. Then he approached one after another to exchange a few words
and, as if forgetting that he wore the head-gear, left the apartment to
order a messenger to take the cap at once to its owner's wife, show it to
her as a guarantee of trustworthiness, and ask her to bring the bag which
the foreign merchant had given him to the castle. The woman did so and
the cheat was unmasked.

Everyone present, like Els, was familiar with this story, which wrongly
cast so evil a light upon the uprightness of the citizens of Nuremberg.
Who could fail to be painfully affected by the thought that Rudolph,
during his present stay amongst them, must witness the injury of others
by a Nuremberg merchant? Who could have now opposed Herr Berthold, when
he asked, still more earnestly than before, that the community would do
its share to maintain confidence in the reliability of the Nuremberg
citizens, and especially of the Honourable Council and everyone of its
members?

But when he mentioned the large sum which he himself, and the other which
Ernst Ortlieb intended on certain conditions to devote to the settlement
of this affair, Peter Ammon also withdrew his opposition. The First
Losunger's proposal was unanimously accepted, and also the condition made
by his associate, Ernst Ortlieb. Casper Eysvogel, on whom the resolution
bore most heavily, submitted in silence, shrugging his shoulders.

How high Els's heart throbbed, how she longed to rush down into the
Council chamber and clasp the hand of the noble old man at the green
table, when he said that in consequence of Ernst Ortlieb's
condition--which he also made--the charge of the newly established
Eysvogel business must be transferred from Herr Casper's hands to those
of his son, Herr Wolff, as soon as the imperial pardon permitted him to
leave his hiding-place. He, Berthold Vorchtel, would make no complaint
against him, for he knew that Wolff had been forced to cross swords with
his Ulrich. He had formed this resolution after a severe struggle with
himself; but as a Christian and a fair-minded man he had renounced the
human desire for revenge, and as God had wished to give him a token of
his approval, he had sent to his house a substitute for his dead son.
Fresh cries of approval interrupted this communication, whose meaning Els
did not understand.

Not a word of remonstrance was uttered when the imperial magistrate at
last p