agents--Building a
house--Secret of success--Peter's youth--Le Fort and Menzikoff--Merchants
of Amsterdam--Le Fort in the counting-house--He goes to Copenhagen--He
becomes acquainted with military life--The ambassador--Le Fort an
interpreter--He attracts the attention of the emperor--His judicious
answers--Gratification of the emperor--The embassador's opinion--The
glass of wine--Le Fort given up to the emperor--His appointment at
court--His subsequent career--Uniforms--Le Fort's suggestion--An
embassador's train--Surprise and pleasure of the Czar--Le Fort undertakes
a commission--Making of the uniforms--He enlists a company--The company
appears before the emperor--The result--New improvements
proposed--Changes--Remodeling of the tariff--Effects of the change--The
finances--Carpenters and masons brought in--New palace--Le Fort's
increasing influence--His generosity--Peter's violent temper--Le Fort an
intercessor--Prince Menzikoff--His early history--He sets off to seek his
fortune--His pies and cakes--Negotiations with the emperor--Menzikoff in
Le Fort's company--Menzikoff's real character--Quarrel between Peter and
his wife--Cause of the quarrel--Ottokesa's cruel fate--Grave faults in
Peter's character

Whatever may be a person's situation in life, his success in his
undertakings depends not more, after all, upon his own personal ability
to do what is required to be done, than it does upon his sagacity and the
soundness of his judgment in selecting the proper persons to co-operate
with him and assist him in doing it. In all great enterprises undertaken
by men, it is only a very small part which they can execute with their
own hands, and multitudes of most excellently contrived plans fail for
want of wisdom in the choice of the men who are depended upon for the
accomplishment of them.

This is true in all things, small as well as great. A man may form a
very wise scheme for building a house. He may choose an excellent place
for the location of it, and draw up a good plan, and make ample
arrangements for the supply of funds, but if he does not know how to
choose, or where to find good builders, his scheme will come to a
miserable end. He may choose builders that are competent but dishonest,
or they may be honest but incompetent, or they may be subject to some
other radical defect; in either of which cases the house will be badly
built, and the scheme will be a failure.

Many men say, when such a misfortune as t