"Sir Captain," answered Ulenspiegel, "only give me the fine golden cord you wear on your hat, and I will go straightway and hang myself by the teeth from that fat ham which I see hanging over there at the cook-shop." The Captain asked him where he came from. Ulenspiegel told him, "From Flanders." "What do you want?" "To show His Highness the Landgrave one of my pictures. For I am a painter." "If it is a painter that you are," said the Captain, "and from Flanders, come in, and I will lead you to my master." When he had been brought before the Landgrave, Ulenspiegel saluted thrice and again. "May your Highness deign," said he, "to excuse my presumption in daring to come and lay before these noble feet a picture I have made for your Highness, wherein I have had the honour to portray Our Lady the Virgin in her royal attire." And then after a moment's pause: "It may be that my picture may please your Highness," he continued, "and in that case I am sufficiently presumptuous to hope that I might aspire even unto this fine chair of velvet, where sat in his lifetime the painter that is lately deceased and ever to be regretted by your Magnanimity." Now the picture which Ulenspiegel showed him was very beautiful, and when the Landgrave had inspected it, he told Ulenspiegel to sit down upon the chair, for that he would certainly make him his Court Painter. And the Landgrave kissed him on both cheeks, most joyously, and Ulenspiegel sat down on the chair. "Of a truth you are a very talkative fellow," said the Landgrave, looking him up and down. "May it please your Lordship," answered Ulenspiegel, "Jef--my donkey--has dined most excellently well on thistles, but as for me I have seen nothing but misery these three days past, and have had nothing to nourish me but the mists of expectation." "You shall soon have some better fare than that," answered the Landgrave. "But where is this donkey of yours?" "I left him on the Grande Place," Ulenspiegel said, "opposite the palace; and I should be most obliged if he could be given lodging for the night--some straw and a little fodder." The Landgrave immediately gave instructions to one of his pages that Ulenspiegel's donkey should be treated even as his own. The hour for supper soon arrived, and the meal was like a wedding festival. Hot meats smoked in the dishes, wine flowed like water, while Ulenspiegel and the Landgrave grew both as red as burning coals. Ulenspiegel also became very merry, but His Highness was somewhat pensive even in his cups. "Our painter," said he suddenly, "will have to paint our portrait. For it is a great satisfaction to a mortal prince to bequeath to his descendants the memory of his countenance."