s chanced to be in
its fullest swing. He was a very clever lawyer and _diplomate_, and a
certain German prince---not a person of _great_ importance--had
employed him to draw up a memorial, concerning claims of his on the
Imperial Chancery, which had been eminently successful. As Krespel had
often said he never could meet with a house quite to his mind, this
prince, as recompense for his services, undertook to pay for the
building of a house, to be planned by Krespel according to the dictates
of his fancy. He also offered to buy a site for it; but Krespel
determined to build it in a delightful piece of garden ground of his
own, just outside the town-gate. So he got together all the necessary
building materials, and had them laid down in this piece of ground.
After which, he was to be seen all day long, in his usual extraordinary
costume--which he always made with his own hands, on peculiar
principles of his own--slaking the lime, sifting the gravel, arranging
the stones in heaps, etc., etc. He had not gone to any architect for a
plan. But one fine day he walked in upon the principal builder, and
told him to come next morning, to his garden, with the necessary
workmen--stonemasons, hodmen, and so forth--and build him a house. The
builder, of course, asked to see the plan, and was not a little
astonished when Krespel said there was no plan and no occasion for one;
every thing would go on all right without one.

"The builder arrived next morning with his men, and found a great
rectangular trench, carefully dug in the ground; and Krespel said 'this
is the foundation; so set to work, and go on building the walls till I
tell you to stop.'

"'But what about the doors and windows,' said the builder; 'are there
to be no partition walls?'

"'Just you do as I tell you, my good man,' said Krespel, as calmly as
possible; 'everything will come quite right in its own good time.'

"Nothing but the prospect of liberal payment induced the man to have
anything to do with a job so preposterous--but never was there a piece
of work carried through so merrily; for it was amid the never-ceasing
jokes and laughter of the workmen--who never left the ground, where
abundance of victuals and drink were always at hand--that the four
walls rose with incredible celerity, till one day Krespel cried,
'Stop!'

"Mallets and chisels paused. The men came down from their scaffolds,
and formed a circle about Krespel, each grinning countenance seeming to