The boisterous chorus had hardly died away, when a quiet but unmistakably firm voice was heard to say:
"Stop there! enough of this!"
All turned with a start, and saw that the silent stranger near the door had risen from his seat.
"Gentlemen," he continued, amid the universal hush of amazement, "I must tell you that I am a tailor, and that I object to hear any man speak ill of my trade."
"Do you, really?" cried Hermann, with a laugh. "Well, then, I must tell you that you will either keep a civil tongue in your head, or I'll have to show you the difference between an honest forester and a fellow who lives on cloth clippings and ends of thread."
"Better live on them than on stolen game," retorted the unknown, with biting contempt.
At this last insinuation, honest Hermann—who certainly was said to be not overparticular whether the deer that he shot belonged to the park or to the forest—lost patience altogether, and laid his hand upon his long hunting-knife. But instantly the landlord thrust himself between them.
"Halt there, lad—no bare blades in my house, if you please. I'll tell you a better way to settle it than that. You know our old Bavarian fashion; when two young fellows want to try each other's strength, they join hands and see which can tug the other across the line. Clear a space there, and let us see which is the best man."
The tables and benches were pushed back, a line chalked on the floor, and Hermann and the stranger, seizing each other's hands in a strong grasp, stood foot to foot, awaiting the signal.
Now for the first time it broke upon the foresters that their champion might not have such an easy victory after all, for the supple vigor of the stranger's movements, and the firmness with which he planted his feet, showed that Hermann had his work cut out for him. Hermann himself, feeling the iron grasp of the unknown's long bony fingers, began to think so too; but could any man, much less a tailor, be a match for him? Absurd! And he began with a pull that ought to have ended the whole business at once; but somehow it didn't.