pressure of the thumb, yet wheat rolls had been baked specially for the
Nuremberg party. Was God's good gift too poor for the Honourables with
the gold chains?

Now, even fragile little Dr. Eberbach, and the students and Bacchantes
who had stood around him like disciples, intently listening to his
words, bowed respectfully. The ungodly, insolent fellows who surrounded
the Dominican Jacobus, the vender of indulgences, had turned from him,
while he exhorted them, as if he were an importunate beggar. What did
the merchants, artisans, and musicians know about the godless Greek
and Latin writings which brought the names of Pirckheimer and Peutinger
before the people, yet how reverently many of these folk now bowed
before them. Only the soldiers with swords at their sides held their
heads erect. They proved that they were right in calling themselves
"pious lansquenets." The broad-shouldered knight, with the plumed hat
and suit of mail, who walked beside them, was Sir Hans von Obernitz, the
Schultheiss of Nuremberg. He was said to be a descendant of the ancient
Brandenstein race, and yet--was the world topsy-turvy?--he, too,
was listening to every word uttered by Wilibald Pirckheimer and
Dr. Peutinger as if it were a revelation. The gray-haired leech and
antiquary, Hartmann Schedel, whom Herr Wilibald,--spite of the gout
which sometimes forced a slight grimace to distort his smooth-shaven,
clever, almost over-plump face,--led by the arm like a careful son,
resembled, with his long, silver locks, a patriarch or an apostle.

The young envoy of the Council, Herr Lienhard Groland, lingered behind
the others and seemed to be taking a survey of the room.

What bright, keen eyes he had; how delicately cut was the oval face with
the strong, very slightly hooked nose; how thick were the waving brown
locks that fell upon the slender neck; how well the pointed beard suited
his chin; with what austere majesty his head rose above the broad,
plaited, snow-white ruff, which he must have just donned!

Now his eyes rested upon the vagrants, and Dietel perceived something
which threw him completely off his balance; for the first time he
changed the position of his napkin, jerking it from its place under
his left arm to tuck it beneath the right one. He had known Kuni a long
time. In her prosperous days, when she was the ornament of Loni's band
and had attracted men as a ripe pear draws wasps, she had often been
at the tavern, and both he an