"Doing? Why is it not weighty business to-day? The Mastersingers are to have a trial of voices, to be sure. The pupil, whoever he may be, whose voice is fine and whose composition breaks none of the rules that govern those things is to be made free to enter for the prize; and later, when the great festival of song is on, he may even become a Mastersinger, himself." "There, Sir Knight, is your opportunity! You must be the pupil. Eva, we must be gone and leave Sir Walther to try for thee." "Oh, heaven! I am all of a fright. I fear I shall never understand what is expected of me," Walther cried distractedly. "David here shall tell you, Sir Walther. Here, David, help this brave gentleman all that you can. I wish it." She looked admonishment at him. "Tell him all the plan of the Mastersingers and how they will expect him to conduct himself in the competition. Come, Eva." But Eva still lingered. In came two other apprentices, bearing benches. Walther watched those formidable preparations with uneasiness, walking up and down the church in dismay. "Good heaven! I am sure I cannot sing. I have never tried to sing. I shall never be able to sing. Yet I must sing. What in the world can a man do, in such a fix?" "Well, well, do the best you can. David will instruct you, Sir Knight," said Magdalene, and she hurried away with Eva, leaving the poor knight alone with the apprentices. These chaps came in thick and fast, bringing benches for the Mastersingers to sit upon, and arranging everything in the church for the trial of song. David kept watching Walther, who had flung himself into a great ecclesiastical chair, and sat there brooding. After observing him in silence for a time, David shouted: "Begin," Walther started. "What for?" "Begin!" "What for?" "What for?--why that is how the Marker calls. You must then at once go and sing. Don't you understand anything about this business?" he asked in amazement. "Who is the Marker?" Poor Walther asked, more and more bewildered. "Were you never before at a singing trial?" "Not where the judges were craftsmen," Walther answered. He was quite certain if he knew anything about music, it could not be the kind that shoe-makers, and boiler makers, and the like were acquainted with. "Are you a poet?" "I wish I were," Walther sighed dejectedly. "Are you then a 'scholar'?" "Lord, no, I think not--I don't know. What is a 'scholar?" "Don't know that, and yet expect to become a Mastersinger!" David cried, in amazement. "Well, now, let me tell you, Sir Knight, no one gets to be a Mastersinger in a minute! For a full year, Hans Sachs, our greatest master, has been teaching me the art, and I am not yet even a 'scholar.'" Shoemaker's craft and Poet's art, Daily I learn by the heart. First, all the leather smooth I hammer, Consonants then, and vowels I stammer. Next must the thread be stiff with wax, Then I must learn it rhymes with Sachs.