“There is something pure about it—­something-it’s hard to say, something—­what do you think, Nico?  Doesn’t he look like our Saint Sebastian?  Shall I speak to him and thank him for his kindness?”

The baron, without waiting for his son, whom he treated as an equal, to reply, rose to give expression to his friendly feelings towards the musician, but this laudable intention met with an unexpected obstacle.

The man, whom the baron had called the fencing-master Allertssohn, had just perceived that the “Glippers” cloaks were hanging by the fire, while his friend’s and his own were flung on a bench.  This fact seemed to greatly irritate the Leyden burgher; for as the baron rose, he pushed his own chair violently back, bent his muscular body forward, rested both arms on the edge of the table opposite to him and, with a jerking motion, turned his soldierly face sometimes towards the baron, and sometimes towards the landlord.  At last he shouted loudly: 

“Peter Quatgelat—­you villain, you!  What ails you, you, miserable hunchback!—­Who gives you a right to toss our cloaks into a corner?”

“Yours, Captain,” stammered the host, “were already—­”

“Hold your tongue, you fawning knave!” thundered the other in so loud a tone and such excitement, that the long grey moustache on his upper lip shook, and the thick beard on his chin trembled.  “Hold your tongue!  We know better.  Jove’s thunder!  Nobleman’s cloaks are favored here.  They’re of Spanish cut.  That exactly suits the Glippers’ faces.  Good Dutch cloth is thrown into the corner.  Ho, ho, Brother Crooklegs, we’ll put you on parade.”

“Pray, most noble Captain—­”

“I’ll blow away your most noble, you worthless scamp, you arrant rascal!  First come, first served, is the rule in Holland, and has been ever since the days of Adam and Eve.  Prick up your ears, Crooklegs!  If my ’most noble’ cloak, and Herr Wilhelm’s too, are not hanging in their old places before I count twenty, something will happen here that won’t suit you.  One-two-three—­”

The landlord cast a timid, questioning glance at the nobleman, and as the latter shrugged his shoulders and said audibly:  “There is probably room for more than two cloaks at the fire,” Quatgelat took the Leyden guests’ wraps from the bench and hung them on two chairs, which he pushed up to the mantel-piece.

While this was being done, the fencing-master slowly continued to count.  By the time he reached twenty the landlord had finished his task, yet the irate captain still gave him no peace, but said: 

“Now our reckoning, man.  Wind and storm are far from pleasant, but I know even worse company.  There’s room enough at the fire for four cloaks, and in Holland for all the animals in Noah’s ark, except Spaniards and the allies of Spain.  Deuce take it, all the bile in my liver is stirred.  Come to the horses with me, Herr Wilhelm, or there’ll be mischief.”