det, SHTAY det, BE det, and you vill lif happy!"

"But your sweetheart?" I said eagerly.

A slight gleam of satire stole into Rutli's light eyes. "My sweetheart,
ven I vos dinks det, is der miller engaged do bromply! It is mooch
better dan to a man dot vos boor and plint and grazy! So! Vell, der next
day I pids dem goot-py, und from der door I say, 'I am det now; but ven
I next comes pack alife, I shall dis village py! der lants, der houses
all togedders. And den for yourselluffs look oudt!'"

"Then that's your revenge? That is what you really intend to do?" I
said, half laughing, yet with an uneasy recollection of his illness and
enfeebled mind.

"Yes. Look here! I show you somedings." He opened a drawer of his desk
and took out what appeared to be some diagrams, plans, and a small
water-colored map, like a surveyor's tracing. "Look," he said, laying
his finger on the latter, "dat is a map from my fillage. I hef myselluff
made it out from my memory. Dot," pointing to a blank space, "is der
mountain side high up, so far. It is no goot until I vill a tunnel make
or der grade lefel. Dere vas mine fader's house, dere vos der church,
der schoolhouse, dot vos de burgomaster's house," he went on, pointing
to the respective plots in this old curving parallelogram of the
mountain shelf. "So was the fillage when I leave him on the 5th of
March, eighteen hundred and feefty. Now you shall see him shoost as I
vill make him ven I go back." He took up another plan, beautifully
drawn and colored, and evidently done by a professional hand. It was
a practical, yet almost fairylike transformation of the same spot!
The narrow mountain shelf was widened by excavation, and a boulevard
stretched on either side. A great hotel, not unlike the one in which we
sat, stood in an open terrace, with gardens and fountains--the site of
his father's house. Blocks of pretty dwellings, shops, and cafes filled
the intermediate space. I laid down the paper.

"How long have you had this idea?"

"Efer since I left dere, fifteen years ago."

"But your father and mother may be dead by this time?"

"So, but dere vill be odders. Und der blace--it vill remain."

"But all this will cost a fortune, and you are not sure"--

"I know shoost vot id vill gost, to a cend."

"And you think you can ever afford to carry out your idea?"

"I VILL affort id. Ven you shall make yet some moneys and go to Europe,
you shall see. I VILL infite you dere first. Now coom