tugging the jug with both handles toward the house, and the antiquarian holding on to the lower end, constituted the excited lateral and secondary figures.  Finally the Justice said that he had been of a mind to give the jug to his guest along with several other pieces which he had previously discovered, because he himself would take pleasure in seeing the old things arranged in order on the shelves of the collection around the room, but that the constant attacks made by the Collector against the sword of Carolus Magnus had annoyed him, and that he had decided, therefore, to keep the jug after all.

Thereupon, after a pause, the Collector said in a dejected tone that to err was human, that medieval weapons could not always be distinguished with certainty as to their age, that he himself was less of an expert in these than in Roman relics, and that there were after all many things about the sword which seemed to indicate a more remote age, before the feud of Soest.  Whereupon the Justice replied that general statements of that kind were of no use to him; he wanted to have the dispute and doubt regarding his sword settled once and for all, and there was only one way for the Collector to gain possession of the old jug, namely, by writing out on the spot a signed statement, wherein he should formally recognize the sword kept in the Oberhof as the actual sword of Charles the Great.

On hearing this a severe conflict ensued in the Collector’s mind between his antiquarian conscience and his antiquarian longing.  He pouted his lips and tapped with his fingers about the spot where he had concealed the bone from the battlefield of Teutoburg.  Evidently he was striving to subdue the exhortations of a desire which was seducing him into signing an untruthful statement.  Finally, however, passion, as is always the way, got the upper hand; suddenly demanding pen and paper, he made out in hot haste, now and then casting furtive glances at the amphora, a direct statement to the effect that he, after frequent examinations of it, recognized and declared the sword in the Oberhof as one formerly belonging to the Emperor, Charles the Great.

This document the Justice had signed by the two peasants as witnesses; then he folded the paper several times and put it into his pocket.  Old Schmitz, on the other hand, made a quick grab for the amphora which he had purchased at the expense of his better judgment.  The Justice said that he would deliver the jug to him in the city on the following day.  But what collector could ever get along, even for a minute, without the actual possession of a piece of property acquired at so high a price?  Our Collector resolutely declined to submit to any delay; he had a string brought to him, ran it through the handles, and suspended the large wine-jug over his shoulders.  After that, the Collector having first been invited to the wedding, the two men parted in the best of humor; and the latter with his bulging angularities, his swelled-up, protruding coat-tails, and with the amphora bobbing back and forth at his left side, made a remarkable spectacle as he walked away.