pleasant. But how grave you look, sir. No offence! You are one of the
rare specimens of featherless birds endowed with reason, who unite to the
austerity of Cato the amiability of Titus."

"All due honour to Cato," added Wilibald Pirckheimer with a slight bend
of his stately head; "but in my young days we had a better understanding
of the art of reconciling stern duty with indulgent compassion, when
dealing with a beautiful Calypso whom our sternness threatened to wound.
But everything in the good old days was not better than at the present
time, and that you, whom I honour as the most faithful of husbands, may
not misunderstand me, Lienhard: To bend and to succumb are two different
things."

"Succumb!" Sir Hans von Obernitz, the Nuremberg magistrate, here
interposed indignantly. "A Groland, who, moreover, is blessed with a
loyal, lovely wife, succumb to the sparkling eyes of a vagabond wanton!
The Pegnitz would flow up the castle cliff first. I should think we
might have less vulgar subjects to discuss."

"The daring, skilful ropedancer certainly does not belong to the latter,"
Doctor Peutinger eagerly retorted. "Besides, who would not desire to
know how the free, hot-blooded daughter of the highway settled the
account with you, friend Lienhard? Love disdained is said to be the
mother of hatred, and from the days of Potiphar's wife has often caused
cruel vengeance. Had this girl whom Sir Hans holds in such light esteem
really possessed an evil nature, like others of her class--"

"That she does not," Lienhard Groland here warmly interrupted the
Augsburg guest.