The latter was still seeking a fitting reply, when the folding doors of the room were thrown wide open, and a belated party of travellers entered.  They came opportunely, for they afforded a timely excuse to withhold an answer without attracting notice; yet at the head of the new guests of The Blue Pike was his Cologne colleague Conrad Kollin, who was followed, as he himself had been, by a number of Dominican friars.

Tungern, of course, went to greet him, and this made it easy to part from his table companions in a manner that aroused no comment; for while Kollin was surrounded and respectfully welcomed by the Dominican friars and many other travellers, the humanists left the house.

CHAPTER III.

Dietel did not lose sight of the envoys.  After whispering together a short time they had risen and gone out.  At the door the Abbot of St. AEgidius left them to greet Professor Kollin, and, with the easy kindness characteristic of him, to say that the room had become too warm for the other gentlemen.  They presented their compliments to the distinguished citizen of Cologne, and placed their table at the service of the newcomer.

Dietel’s sharp ears had enabled him to catch these words; but then he was obliged to move again, a table had to be set outside the house for the Nuremberg travellers and their companions, and jugs of wine must be filled for them.

Then he was called back to the taproom.  While the landlord of The Pike was serving a fresh meal to Professor Kollin at the table vacated by the Nuremberg dignitaries, and Arnold von Tungern was emptying the full vials of his wrath upon the little doctor and the whole body of humanists, the Nuremberg travellers and their guests were now conversing freely, as if relieved from a nightmare, upon the topics which most deeply interested them.

Dietel would far rather have served the Cologne theologians, whom he regarded as the appointed defenders of the true faith, than the insignificant folk at the other tables who had just finished their meal.

How unmannerly their behaviour was!  Better wine had been served before dessert, and they now shouted and sang so loudly and so out of tune that the air played by the strolling musicians could scarcely be distinguished.  Many a table, too, groaned under blows from the clinched fist of some excited reveller.  Every one seemed animated by a single desire-to drink again and again.

Now the last pieces of bread and the cloths were removed from the tables.  The carousers no longer needed Dietel.  He could leave the task of filling the jugs to his young assistants.

What were the envoys outside doing?  They were well off.  In here the atmosphere was stifling from the fumes emanating from the throng of people, the wine, and the food.  It seemed to draw all the flies from far and near.  Whence did they come?  They seemed to have increased by thousands since the early morning, when the room was empty.  The outside air appeared delightful to breathe.  He longed to fill his lungs again with the pure wind of heaven, and at the same time catch a few words of the conversation between the envoys to the Reichstag.