nd had the
young man's head contained the wisdom he appeared to claim for it, he
would have known that his remarks were entirely lacking in tact, and
that he was making no progress, but rather the reverse. "You speak like
a heedless, untutored youth. How could we defend our bales, when no
merchant is allowed to wear a sword?"

Roland rose and put his hands to the throat of his cloak.

"I am not allowed to wear a sword;" and saying this, he dramatically
flung wide his cloak, displaying the prohibited weapon hanging from his
belt. The merchant sat back in his chair, visibly impressed.

"You seem to repose great confidence in me," he said. "What if I were to
inform the authorities?"

The youth smiled.

"You forget, Herr Goebel, that I learned much about you from your friend
last night. I feel quite safe in your house."

He flung his cloak once more over the weapon, and sat down again.

"What is your occupation, sir?" asked the merchant.

"I am a teacher of swordsmanship. I practice the art of a
fencing-master."

"Your clients are aristocrats, then?"

"Not so. The class with which I am now engaged contains twenty skilled
artisans of about my own age."

"If they do not belong to the aristocracy, your instruction must be
surreptitious, because it is against the law."

"It is both surreptitious and against the law, but in spite of these
disadvantages, my twenty pupils are the best swordsmen in Frankfort, and
I would willingly pit them against any twenty nobles with whom I am
acquainted."

"So!" cried the merchant. "You are acquainted with twenty nobles, are
you?"

"Well, you see," explained the young man, flushing slightly, "these
metal-workers whom I drill, being out of employment, cannot afford to
pay for their lessons, and naturally, as you indicated, a fencing-master
must look to the nobles for his bread. I used the word acquaintance
hastily. I am acquainted with the nobles in the same way that a clerk in
the woolen trade might say he was acquainted with a score of merchants,
to none of whom he had ever spoken."

"I see. Am I to take it that your project for opening the Rhine depends
for its success on those twenty metal-workers, who quite lawlessly know
how to handle their swords?"

"Yes."

"Tell me what your plan is."

"I do not care to disclose my plan, even to you."

"I thought you came here hoping I should further your project, and
perhaps finance it. Am I wrong in such a surmise?"

"Sir, y