"Plutus was about to give some ingenious answer, but Otto von Trautwangen rose in wrath, laid his hand on his sword and cried: 'Yonder knave disgraces his armour, and I will prove it on his head, if so be he has the courage to meet me.' Half amused, half alarmed, the company gazed at the wrathful young knight, while Tebaldo angrily dismissed the astounded mummers, upbraiding them with the baseness of their shameful inventions, and forbidding them to enter his house again. Hereupon, blushing with shame, he returned to Otto, and in well-chosen, courtly words prayed his guest not to lay it to his charge that the scurvy crew had thought to flatter the rich merchant by thus _outrageously comparing_ his calling with that of arms." The same evening Otto meets at his inn a certain Sir Archimbald, and is seized by the fancy to exchange armour with him, "which, methinks, we may readily do, since we are both of the old High-German heroic stature." In exchange for his coat of silver mail Otto receives a black one. An entire change comes over him with the change of armour, which does not surprise us when we remember the important part dress plays throughout. As a matter of fact, these knights are not much more than stuffed suits of armour. They affect one much as do the figures one sees riding upon armoured wooden horses in the Tower of London or the great armoury in Dresden. From the description of one of Otto's earliest single combats we gain an idea of the extraordinary influence attributed to attire. His opponent, Sir Heerdegen, wears a rusty suit of armour, and his rusty voice shouts from behind the bars of his _rusty_ helmet: "Bertha! Bertha!" while from Otto's _silver_ helmet comes in _silvery_ tones the cry: "Gabriele! Gabriele!" When Otto goes back to Tebaldo in his new armour, he has become so much handsomer and more manly, that the young merchant, who happens at the moment to be measuring costly fabrics in his storehouse, is almost ashamed to appear before him. "Then Otto von Trautwangen raised his visor. Tebaldo, half affrighted, fell back, exclaiming: 10 heavens! how you have gained in dignity even since yesterday! And here must I stand before you with an ell-wand in my hand!' Thereupon he flung his beautiful measuring rod against a pillar, shattering it into fragments. It was made of ivory and gold, and his servants could not but believe that this had happened by mischance." They attempt to console their master, but he does not listen to them; all his desire now is to give up his merchant's calling and be allowed to follow Otto as his squire. May not something very like all this be observed to-day in the mutual feelings and demeanour of a Prussian cavalry officer and a Prussian merchant?