“I have often wished, Herr Lienhard, that the cart was my coffin and the tavern the graveyard.”

Dietel noticed the fit of coughing which followed this speech, and the hasty movement with which the Nuremberg patrician thrust his hand into his purse and tossed Kuni three coins.  They did not shine with the dull white lustre of silver, but with the yellow glitter of gold.  The waiter’s eyes were sharp and he had his own ideas about this unprecedented liberality.

The travelling companions of the aristocratic burgomaster and ambassadors of the proud city of Nuremberg had also noticed this incident.

After they had taken their seats at the handsomely ornamented table, Wilibald Pirckheimer bent toward the ear of his young friend and companion in office, whispering: 

“The lovely wife at home whom you toiled so hard to win, might, I know, rest quietly, secure in the possession of all the charms of foam-born Aphrodite, yet I warn you.  Whoever is as sure of himself as you cares little for the opinion of others.  And yet we stand high, friend Lienhard, and therefore are seen by all; but the old Argus who watches for his neighbour’s faults has a hundred sharp eyes, while among the gods three are blind—­Justice, Happiness, and Love.  Besides, you flung gold to yonder worthless rabble.  I would rather have given it to the travelling musicians.  They, like us humanists, are allied to the Muses and, moreover, are harmless, happy folk.”

Lienhard Groland listened till his older friend had finished.  Then, after thanking him for his well-meant counsel, he answered, turning to the others also: 

“In better days rope-dancing was the profession of yonder poor, coughing creature.  Now, after a severe accident, she is dragging herself through life on one foot.  I once knew her, for I succeeded in saving her from terrible disgrace.”

“And,” replied Wilibald Pirckheimer, “we would rather show kindness a second and a third time to any one on whom we have be stowed a favour than to render it once to a person from whom we have received one.  This is my own experience.  But the wise man must guard against nothing more carefully than to exceed moderation in his charity.  How easily, when Caius sees Cnejus lavish gold where silver or copper would serve, he thinks of Martial’s apt words:  ’Who gives great gifts, expects great gifts again.’—­[Martial, Epigram 5, 59, 3.]—­Do not misunderstand me.  What could yonder poor thing bestow that would please even a groom?  But the eyes of suspicion scan even the past.  I have often seen you open your purse, friend Lienhard, and this is right.  Whoever hath ought to give, and my dead mother used to say that:  ’No one ever became a beggar by giving at the proper time.’”

“And life is gladdened by what one gives to another,” remarked Conrad Peutinger, the learned Augsburg city clerk, who valued his Padua title of doctor more than that of an imperial councillor.  “It applies to all departments.  Don’t allow yourself to regret your generosity, friend Lienhard.  ‘Nothing becomes man better than the pleasure of giving,’ says Terentius.—­[Terenz.  Ad. 360]—­Who is more liberal than the destiny which adorns the apple tree that is to bear a hundred fruits, with ten thousand blossoms to please our eyes ere it satisfies our appetite?”