of the room were thrown wide open, and a belated party of travellers
entered. They came opportunely, for they afforded a timely excuse to
withhold an answer without attracting notice; yet at the head of the new
guests of The Blue Pike was his Cologne colleague Conrad Kollin, who was
followed, as he himself had been, by a number of Dominican friars.

Tungern, of course, went to greet him, and this made it easy to part
from his table companions in a manner that aroused no comment; for while
Kollin was surrounded and respectfully welcomed by the Dominican friars
and many other travellers, the humanists left the house.

CHAPTER III.

Dietel did not lose sight of the envoys. After whispering together a
short time they had risen and gone out. At the door the Abbot of
St. AEgidius left them to greet Professor Kollin, and, with the easy
kindness characteristic of him, to say that the room had become too
warm for the other gentlemen. They presented their compliments to the
distinguished citizen of Cologne, and placed their table at the service
of the newcomer.

Dietel's sharp ears had enabled him to catch these words; but then he
was obliged to move again, a table had to be set outside the house for
the Nuremberg travellers and their companions, and jugs of wine must be
filled for them.

Then he was called back to the taproom. While the landlord of The Pike
was serving a fresh meal to Professor Kollin at the table vacated by
the Nuremberg dignitaries, and Arnold von Tungern was emptying the
full vials of his wrath upon the little doctor and the whole body of
humanists, the Nuremberg travellers and their guests were now conversing
freely, as if relieved from a nightmare, upon the topics which most
deeply interested them.

Dietel would far rather have served the Cologne theologians, whom
he regarded as the appointed defenders of the true faith, than the
insignificant folk at the other tables who had just finished their meal.

How unmannerly their behaviour was! Better wine had been served before
dessert, and they now shouted and sang so loudly and so out of tune
that the air played by the strolling musicians could scarcely be
distinguished. Many a table, too, groaned under blows from the clinched
fist of some excited reveller. Every one seemed animated by a single
desire-to drink again and again.

Now the last pieces of bread and the cloths were removed from the
tables. The carousers no longer needed Dietel. He cou