“And your feathers were generously plucked?”

“By no means.  I usually left a winner.  But after they fleeced a dear friend from Ulm, and he robbed his master, I dropped dice.”

“And you did so as easily as if it were a short fast after an abundant meal?”

“It was little more difficult,” Wolff asserted.  “My father would have gladly seen me outdo my countrymen, and sent me more money than I needed.  Why should I deprive honest fellows who had less?”

“That’s just the difficulty,” cried his companion eagerly.  “It was easy for you to renounce games of chance because your winnings only added more to the rest, and you did not wish to pluck poorer partners.  But I!  A poor devil like me cannot maintain armour-bearer, servants, and steeds out of what the dear little mother at home in her faithful care can spare from crops and interest.  How could we succeed in making a fair appearance at court and in the tournament if it were not for the dice?  And then, when I lose, I again become but the poor knight the saints made me; when I win, on the contrary, I am the great and wealthy lord I would have been born had the Lord permitted me to choose my own cradle.  Besides, those who lose through me are mainly dukes, counts, and gentlemen with rich fiefs and fat bourgs, whom losing doubtless benefits, as bleeding relieves a sick man.  What suits the soldier does not befit the merchant.  We live wholly amid risks and wagers.  Every battle, every skirmish is a game whose stake is life.  Whoever reflects long is sure to lose.  If I could only describe, Herr Eysvogel, what it is to dash headlong upon the foe!”

“I could imagine that vividly enough,” Wolff eagerly interposed.  “I, too, have broken many a lance in the lists and shed blood enough.”

“What a dunce I am!” cried Heinz in amazement, pressing his hand upon his brow.  “That’s why your face was so familiar!  By my saint!  I am no knight if I did not see you then, before the battle waxed hot.  It was close beside your Burgrave Frederick, who held aloft the imperial banner.”

“Probably,” replied Wolff in a tone of assent.  “He sometimes entrusted the standard to me, when it grew too heavy for his powerful arm, because I was the tallest and the strongest of our Nuremberg band.  But, unluckily, I could not render this service long.  A scimitar gashed my head.  The larger part of the little scar is hidden under my hair.”

“The little scar!” repeated Heinz gaily.  “It was wide enough, at any rate, for the greatest soul to slip through it.  A scar on the head from a wound received four years ago, and yet distinctly visible in the moonlight!”

“It should serve as a warning,” replied Wolff, glancing anxiously up the street.  “If the patrol, or any nocturnal reveller should catch sight of us, it would be ill for the fair fame of the Ortlieb sisters, for everybody knows that only one—­Els’s betrothed lover—­has a right to await a greeting here at so late an hour.  So follow me into the shadow of the linden, I entreat you; for yonder—­surely you see it too—­a figure is gliding towards us.”