a sycophant treated as if he were
Sir Upright--"

"So that vexes you greatly?"

"Vexes? No! Then I grow as savage as a tiger, and I ought not to be so, I
ought not. Roland, my foreman, probably likes--"

"Meister, Meister, your beard is beginning to tremble already!"

"What did the Glippers think, when their aristocratic cloaks--"

The landlord took yours and mine from the fire entirely on his own
responsibility."

"I don't care! The crook-legged ape did it to honor the Spanish
sycophant. It enraged me, it was intolerable."

"You didn't keep your wrath to yourself, and I was surprised to see how
patiently the baron bore your insults."

"That's just it, that's it!" cried the fencing-master, while his beard
began to twitch violently. "That's what drove me out of the tavern,
that's why I took to my heels. That--that--Roland, my fore man."

"I don't understand you."

"Don't you, don't you? How should you; but I'll explain. When you're as
old as I am, young man, you'll experience it too. There are few perfectly
sound trees in the forest, few horses without a blemish, few swords
without a stain, and scarcely a man who has passed his fortieth year that
has not a worm in his breast. Some gnaw slightly, others torture with
sharp fangs, and mine--mine.--Do you want to cast a glance in here?"

The fencing-master struck his broad chest as he uttered these words and,
without waiting for his companion's reply, continued:

"You know me and my life, Herr Wilhelm. What do I do, what do I practise?
Only chivalrous work.

"My life is based upon the sword. Do you know a better blade or surer
hand than mine? Do my soldiers obey me? Have I spared my blood in
fighting before the red walls and towers yonder? No, by my fore man
Roland, no, no, a thousand times no."

"Who denies it, Meister Allerts? But tell me, what do you mean by your
cry: Roland, my fore man?"

"Another time, Wilhelm; you mustn't interrupt me now. Hear my story about
where the worm hides in me. So once more: What I do, the calling I
follow, is knightly work, yet when a Wibisma, who learned how to use his
sword from my father, treats me ill and stirs up my bile, if I should
presume to challenge him, as would be my just right, what would he do?
Laugh and ask: 'What will the passado cost, Fencing-master Allerts? Have
you polished rapiers?' Perhaps he wouldn't even answer at all, and we saw
just now how he acts. His glance slipped past me like an eel, and he ha