without accompanying the word or
the deed with somewhat that shall serve as an antidote thereunto. For
I bear ill will to none, and it is constantly my endeavor to make life
pleasant and dear not only to myself but also to my fellow beings.

My consideration for Uncle Si's feelings was almost immediately
rewarded, for as I left Uncle Si smoking his cigar in a comforted mood
I beheld my neighbor, Colonel Bobbett Doller, coming up the driveway
and beckoning to me. If you know the colonel as I do, you know him to
be a gentleman of wealth, of position, and of influence. Moreover,
Colonel Doller is a man of large sympathies. He had heard of our
recent acquisition and had come to congratulate me. We shook hands
warmly.

"You have here," said Colonel Doller, cordially, "a magnificent
property, and I heartily rejoice to learn that you acquired it at a
merely nominal price. Has it occurred to you, my dear sir, that this
tract, with its majestic sweep of lawn and its picturesque glory of
shade trees, presents tremendous possibilities--in fact, secures to you
the opportunity of comprehending riches beyond the dreams of avarice?
Let us be seated upon this pile of bricks while I unfold to you a
panorama of potentialities."

X

COLONEL DOLLER'S GREAT IDEA

Colonel Bobbett Doller and I sat down, side by side, on the pile of
bricks, and the colonel proceeded straightway to disclose pleasing
visions to my mind's eye.

"You are doubtless aware," said the colonel, "that you are not, in the
severest acceptation of the term, a business man?"

"Alas," said I, "I am compelled in all candor to admit that lamentable
fact."

"Then," continued the colonel, "you probably do not know that this
noble expanse of high ground upon which your stately residence is
reared is the exact centre of a radius of eighty miles. In other
words, did the power of your vision extend eighty miles you would be
able to see for yourself from the roof of your superb house that this
point is in fact the centre of a radius representing a stretch in any
and every direction of eighty miles."

"No, I had never supposed it possible," said I.

"It is, nevertheless, a demonstrable fact," said Colonel Doller. "It
is more notorious, however, that this property of yours (designated in
the records as the south half of lot 16, Terhune's addition, section 9,
township of Pond View)"----

"Page 273, volume 105," said I, interrupting him; for I suddenly
recal