the citizens capture the brother of the duke's general, and the
besiegers capture the tall knight, who turns out to be no knight after
all, but just a plebeian hosier. The duke's general is on the point of
ordering the tradesman who has made so much trouble to be shot, but the
latter still remains master of the situation; for, as he dryly observes,
if any harm comes to him, the enraged citizens will hang the general's
brother. Some parley ensues, in which the shrewd hosier promises for the
townsfolk to set free their prisoner and pay a round sum of money if the
besieging army will depart and leave them in peace. The offer is
accepted, and so the matter is amicably settled. As the worthy citizen
is about to take his leave, the general ventures a word of inquiry as to
the cause of the town's revolt. "What, then, is your grievance, my good
friend?" Our hosier knight, though deft with needle and keen with lance,
has a stammering tongue. He answers: "Tuta--tuta--tuta--tuta--too much
taxes!"

[Sidenote: "Too much taxes."]
"Too much taxes:" those three little words furnish us with a clue
wherewith to understand and explain a great deal of history. A great
many sieges of towns, so horrid to have endured though so picturesque
to read about, hundreds of weary marches and deadly battles, thousands
of romantic plots that have led their inventors to the scaffold, have
owed their origin to questions of taxation. The issue between the
ducal commander and the warlike tradesman has been tried over and
over again in every country and in every age, and not always has the
oppressor been so speedily thwarted and got rid of. The questions as
to how much the taxes shall be, and who is to decide how much they
shall be, are always and in every stage of society questions of most
fundamental importance. And ever since men began to make history, a
very large part of what they have done, in the way of making history,