"The old man looked at him angrily, and he stopped at once. Traugott couldn't help a certain embarrassment in their presence, so that they were gone before he managed to ask where they lived, etc., etc. The looks of them had something so marvellous about them that even the people in the office were struck by it.
"The surly book-keeper stuck his pen behind his ear and stared at the old man, with his arms crossed behind his head.
"God bless my soul!' he cried, when the couple had gone out, 'that chap with the curly beard and the black cloak looks like an old picture of the year 1400 in the church of St. John.'
"But Herr Elias took him for a Polish Jew, notwithstanding his aristocratic bearing, and his grave, thoughtful, old-German face.
"'Stupid brute!' he cried. 'Sells his paper now, and would get at least ten per cent, more for it this day week!' Of course he didn't know that Traugott was going to pay him the difference out of his own pocket; which he did some days afterwards, when he came across the old man and the lad in the Artus Hof again.
"'My son,' said the old man, 'has reminded me that you are a brother-artist; therefore I have accepted this service from you, which otherwise I should not have done.'
"They were standing beside one of the four granite pillars which support the vaulted roof of the hall, and close to the figures which Traugott had drawn in the letter of advice. He spoke, without hesitation, of the extraordinary likeness of these figures to the old man and the lad. The old man gave a strange smile, laid his hand on Traugott's shoulder, and said, in a low voice of some caution:
"'You are not aware, then, that I am Godfredus Berklinger, the German painter, and that I painted the figures which you seem to admire a very long time ago, when I was quite a young student of my art? I painted my own portrait as the Burgomaster, as a souvenir, and that the page leading the horse is my son you may see in a moment if you compare their faces and figures.'
"Traugott was dumb with amazement, but he soon felt that the old man, who believed himself the master who had painted these pictures over two hundred years ago, must be suffering from some species of insanity.
"'Indeed,' said the old man, lifting his head and looking round him with pride, 'it was a glorious springtide of art when I adorned this hall with all these pictures, in honour of the wise King Arthur and his Round Table. I have always felt convinced that the noble presence, who came to me once when I was working here, and called me to mastership, which I had not then attained, was King Arthur himself.'