THE WOLVES OF THE MARK The Hirschgasse is a little inn across the river, well known to the wilder blades of Plassenburg.

There they go to be outside the authority of the city magistrates, to make rendezvous with maids more complaisant than maidenly, to fight their duels, and generally to do those things without remark which otherwise bring them under the eye of the Miller's Son, as they one and all call (behind his back) the reigning Prince of Plassenburg.
It was on the stroke of seven, and as fine an evening as ever failed to touch the soul of sinful man with a sense of its beauty, that I set out to fight the nephew of Duke Casimir.

I had indeed ridden far and fast, and withal kept my head since I left the Red Tower a poor homeless wanderer, otherwise I had scarce found myself going out with High Councillor Leopold von Dessauer as my second to fight my late master's heir, the proximate Duke of the Wolfmark.
What was my surprise to find the old man attired in the appropriate costume for such an occasion, a close-fitting suit of dark gray, of ancient cut indeed, and without the fashionable slashes and scallops, but both correct and practicable, either for the sword-play or the proper ordering of it in others.
Von Dessauer laughed a little dry laugh when I congratulated him on the youthfulness of his appearance.

Indeed, he seemed little grateful for my felicitations.

And if it had not been for the rheumatism which he had inherited from his father's campaigns on the tented field, and the weakness which came from his own in other fields, he would yet have proved as fit for the play of fence as any youngster of them all.