“Five hundred thousand years indulgence just for visiting them,” she concluded. “Oh! if I could only bring my father!” The good-hearted Freifrau here tactfully changed the subject. Her husband, however, and certain of the ‘Honorability’[3] who joined us at the board, spoke with veiled bitterness of the recent mania for indulgences. “Tetzel is a greater knave than Judas,” concluded the testy Freiherr; “all honest men are enraged at him--but who will bell the cat?” Who indeed? For I considered his words as prophetic when, a little later in the evening, as we sat listening to a recital of the recent troubles betwixt Kaiser Maximilian and the princes, a visitor was introduced, requesting to see none other than myself. “Dr. Andreas Carlstadt,” said the Freiherr as intermediary; “one of the most learned and honored of our University professors.” The newcomer was a man of smallish stature, dark and sunburned, with over-sharp features; he had a harsh voice, and I judged a warm temper, though not lacking in learning and intellectual ability. Having ascertained my identity he drew his fur-lined doctor’s gown about him and gave me a profound reverence; then proceeded to ask questions. I was familiar with Rome? Yes. Recently come thence? Yes. I had seen Tetzel at Jüterbog? Yes. Good, then, would I deign to do him a favor? “What was it?” The professor cleared his throat. He was evidently on a delicate mission. Had I ever heard of Dr. Martin Luther of Wittenberg University? I had,--a tolerably well-known preacher and scholar. My visitor then opened his business. “Then, very noble Graf, I am come to you to crave a favor. His Lordship the Freiherr will bear testimony to this Dr. Martin’s piety, sincerity, and zeal.” “Gladly,” assented the gentleman warmly; “never do I miss the parish church when he preaches. My wife and most of Wittenberg call him everything but a saint; and better, he is a right manly man. _He_ is no sailor in the ship with Tetzel.” “Ah!” interposed Carlstadt promptly; “your Lordship has said it. He _is_ no friend of Tetzel’s. The tale of the preaching at Jüterbog has come to his ears, and has driven him almost frantic. This morning, being filled up with stories of the indulgence hawking, he shut himself in his study at the Augustinian convent, and all day has wrought on certain theses--propositions, your Lordships understand,--which he proposes for public debate. In them he assails Tetzel rightly but rashly. ‘God willing,’ he vowed when I remonstrated, ‘I will make a hole in his drum!’ But that is not the worst. I have had a glimpse of the theses. They contain many things that Tetzel and his Dominican friends can wrestle into downright heresy, even attacks upon the power and prerogative of His Holiness the Pope.” “Your Dr. Martin must be a very Hercules to rouse that Cerberus,” I threw out, smiling. “The Graf does not know him. He would walk to the stake as cheerfully as to dinner, if only he felt that plain duty summoned him.”