"Who?" echoed the landlord, staring; "why, brother, you must be a stranger in these parts to ask that. But if you want to know about him, all you've got to do is to go down to Kreuzweg town yonder and ask any man, woman, or child you may meet about 'Strong Schalk,' and they'll tell you something that'll astonish you."
"And if that's not enough," struck in one of the hunters, with a grin, "let him go into Schalk's shop and challenge him to wrestle, and he'll be astonished still more—eh, Father Baum?"
"Ugh! don't talk of it!" grunted the landlord, making a wry face; "you make my fingers ache with the very recollection."
"Why, he must be a perfect giant!" cried the peddler, who had been listening open-mouthed.
"No, that's the strangest part of it. He's no bigger than another man—rather smaller, in fact—and a tailor into the bargain; and yet he can do feats worthy of Hans Stronghand in the story."
"Of whom are you speaking?" asked a deep voice from the door.
"Of Strong Schalk, the tailor of Kreuzweg, Friend Hermann," answered the landlord, shaking hands with the new-comer, a powerful young fellow, with an air which showed that he had no small idea of his own importance.
"The mischief take Strong Schalk!" cried Hermann, angrily. "I'm sick of his very name;" and with the full power of his mighty voice he rolled out the song:
"There were a host of tailors,
Brave fellows one and all;
Then drank they, all the ninety,
Ay, nine times nine-and-ninety,
Out of a thimble small.
"And when this draught had quenched their thirst,
Then weigh themselves would they;
Yet could not all the ninety,
Ay, nine times nine-and-ninety,
A single goat upweigh.
"Then homeward trudged they all—but lo!
The door was locked within;
Then hopped they, all the ninety,
Ay, nine times nine-and-ninety,
Right through the key-hole, in."