“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, you are not.  The very first proviso is that you pay to me across this table a thousand thalers in gold.”

The smile came again to the lips of the merchant.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“Yes.  You will select one of your largest barges, and fill it with whatever class of goods you deal in.”

“Don’t you know what class of goods I deal in?”

“No!  I do not.”

Goebel’s smile broadened.  That a youth so ignorant of everything pertaining to the commerce of Frankfort, should come in thus boldly and demand a thousand thalers in gold from a man whose occupation he did not know, seemed to the merchant one of the greatest pieces of impudence he had encountered in his long experience of men.

“After all, my merchandise,” he said, “matters little one way or another when I am engaged with such a customer as you.  What next?”

“You will next place a price upon the shipload; a price such as you would accept if the boat reached Cologne intact.  I agree to pay you that money, together with the thousand thalers, when I return to Frankfort.”

“And when will that be, young sir?”

“You are better able to estimate the length of time than I. I do not know, for instance, how long it takes a barge to voyage from Frankfort to Cologne.”

“Given fair weather, which we may expect in July, and premising that there are no interruptions, let us say a week.”

“Would a man journeying on horseback from Cologne to Frankfort reach here sooner than the boat?”

“The barge having to make headway against a strong current, I should say the horseman would accomplish the trip in a third of the time.”

“Very well.  To allow for all contingencies, I promise to pay the money one month from the day we leave the wharf at Frankfort.”

“That would be eminently satisfactory.”

“I forgot to mention that I expect you, knowing more about navigation than I, to supply a trustworthy captain and an efficient crew for the manning of the barge.  I should like men who understand the currents of the river, and who, if questioned by the Barons, would not be likely to tell more than they were asked.”