feature of our
several faces.

Speaking proper German, also proving to be understood by him, one
of the group began: "Of course you have heard of the clever Tyrolese
peasant, still living, Hans Jakob Fetz?"

Neither he nor Moidel had ever heard of him, and as they both pricked
up their ears, they learned the following: Fetz possesses a little
farm called the Pines. It has, however, the disadvantage of lying
on both sides of a wild rushing torrent, the Ache, a river given to
inundations in the spring, and over which there is no bridge in his
neighborhood. Thus, though Hans Jakob could sit at his door, and
almost count the ears of corn in his fields across the river, he must
make a circuit of five miles to reach them. Such an immense loss of
time and labor troubled him no little, and, as he had no desire to
sell his property, he determined by hook or by crook to remedy the
evil. Day and night he turned the perplexing problem over in his mind.
He might, to be sure, swim across, but then there were his tools to be
carried. At last it flashed upon him: Why not make an aerial car? He
bought for this purpose some very thick iron wire, stretched it in two
parallel lines across the river, fastening the four ends very firmly;
constructed a bench on iron rollers, which, sustained by the wire, ran
across the river in a trice, and his aerial car was a reality. Here,
indeed, was a triumph. It worked admirably, and the whole neighborhood
became excited and astonished about the air-railway, as they called
it. The news spreading, it brought finally some gentlemen from the
town of Dornbirn, who were wild to have a ride across the river. Hans
Jakob refused it: he doubted the strength being sufficient for more
than one passenger; but they persisting in their urgent demand, he at
last reluctantly consented. They would not, or else they could not,
go without him. So, the party being seated on the bench, he unfastened
the hook, when they should have been instantly whirled across. But,
alas! his fears proved true: the wire gave way, and down they
all went, plump into the wild rushing river. A great fright and
wetting--that was all, for the time being, until the gentlemen,
although they had promised not to say a word on the subject, having
whispered it to this friend and that, leaving no part uncolored, the
town of Dornbirn grew scandalized at a mad peasant's audacity. The
authorities took it in hand, and a solemn gendarme visited Hans Jakob