A Fool and His Money

time when I was least competent to acknowledge his wisdom and most arrogant in asserting my own. I was a freshman in college: a fact-or condition, perhaps,-which should serve as an ex

oo had been in college and knew less when he came out than when he entered. Which was a mild way of putting it, I a

ay qualified to dispute this ancient theory. In theory, no doubt, I was the kind of fool he referred to, but in practice I was quite an untried novice. It is very hard for even a fool to part with something he hasn't got. True, I parted with the little I had at college with noteworthy promptness about the middle of each term, but t

rward took my degree and went out into the world to convince it that seniors are by no means adolescent. Having successfully passed the age of reason, I too felt myself admirably qualified to look with scorn upon all creatures employed in the business of getting an education. There wer

was preliminary; a sort of makeshift. At any rate, I was going to be a writer. My Uncle Rilas, a hard-headed customer who had read Scott as a boy and the Wall Street news as a man,-without being misled by either,-was scornful. He said that I would outgrow it, there was some consolation in that. He even admitted that when he w

e said in reply that an ordinarily vigorous washerwoman could make more money than the average n

me in any course whatsoever, especially as he had all he could do to keep his own wolf at bay without encouraging mine, and who, besides teaching good English, loved it wisely and too well. I think Un

she was positive I could succeed as a writer if I set my mind to it. She was also sure tha

was obliged to promise him a glimpse of the check when I got it. Somewhat belated, it came in the course of three or four months with a rather tart letter in which I was given to understand that it wasn't quite the thing to pester a great publishi

up nearly all night to finish it. The next day he called it "trash" but invited me to have luncheon with him at the Metropolitan Club, and rather noisily introduced me to a few old cron

all the more staggering in view of the circumstance th

n, elected to wed a splendid looking young fellow who clerked in a jeweller's shop in Fifth Avenue. They had been engaged for several years, it seems, and my swollen fortune failed to disturb her sense of fidelity. Perhaps you will be interested enough in a girl who could refuse to share a fortune of something like three hundred thousand dollars-(not counting me, of course)-to let me tell you briefly who and what she was. She was my typist. That is to say, she did piece-work for me as I ha

tly in my place by remarking that fortunes like wine are made in a day while really excellent jeweller's clerks are something like thirty years in the making. Which, I take it, was as much as to say that there is always room for improvement in a man. I confess I was somewhat disturbed by one of her gentlest rem

t into my head that I could make something else of her. I not only lost a competent typist, but I lost a great deal of s

hat the jeweller's clerk would experience a great deal of trouble in living up to it. At first

y cut up over the way my first serious affair of the heart turned out, and tried my best to hate myself for letting it worry me. Somehow I was able to attribute the fiasco to an inborn sense of shyness that has always made me faint-hearted, dilatory and unaggressive. No doubt if I had gone about it roughshod and fiery I

ant, for that matter-are doomed to have love affairs thrust upon them, as yo

as one might struggle through a morass on a dark night, I shall take the lib

a hero. My thatch is abundant and quite black. I understand that my eyes are green when I affect a green tie, light blue when I put on one of that delicate hue, and curiously yellow when I wear brown about my neck. Not that I really need them, but I wear nose glasses when reading: to save my eyes, of course. I sometimes wear them in public, with a very fetching and imposing black band draping

gh degree,-mentally, of course,-and my bosom companions have been knights of valour and longevity. Nothing could have suited me better than to have been born in a feudal castle a few

m still unattached and, so far as I can tell, unloved. What more could a sensible, experienced bachelor expect than that? Un

view, and I declare to you I had a wretchedly close call of it. My poor mother, thinking it was quite settled, sailed for America, leaving me entirely unprotected, whereupon I succeeded in making my

ave been a fairer friend to me. At any rate I now pamper myself to an unreasonable extent. For one thing, I feel that I cannot work,-much less think,-when opposed by distracting conditions such as women, tea, disputes over luggage, and things of that sort. They subdue all the romantic tendencies I am so parsimonious about wasti

for everybody concerned, and my secretary, more wide-awake than you'd imagine by looking at him, urged me to coddl

h Elsie Hazzard and her stupid husband, the doctor. I compromised with myself by deciding to give them a week of my dreamy compa

verhanging the river, almost opposite the town, which isn't far from Krems, stood the venerable but unvenerated castle of that highhanded old robber baron, the first of the Rothhoefens. He has been in his sarcophagus these six cen

bly enhanced by the presence of a caretaker who would never see eighty again, and whose wife was even older. Their two sons lived with th

funicular and rack-and-pinion railroads which serve to commercialise grandeur instead of protecting it. Half way up the hill, we paused to rest, and I quite clearly remember growling that if the confou

iver, we three were scurrying to Saalsburg, urged by a sudden and

my mind to b

considerably in the price, whatever it might turn out to be. While the ancient caretaker admitted that it was for sale, he couldn't give me the faintest notion what it was expected to bring, except that it ought to bring more from an American than from any one else, and that he would be proud and happy to remain in my service, he and his wife and his prodigiously capable sons, either of whom if put to the test could br

en negotiating with great ardour ever since coming into possession of an estate once valued at several millions. I am quite sure I have never seen a spendthrift with more energy than this fellow seems to have displayed in going through with his patrimony. He was on his uppers, so to speak, when I came to his rescue, solely because he couldn't find a purchaser or a tenant for the castle, try as he would. Afterwards I heard that he had offered the place to a syndicate

in other impressive apartments customarily kept open for the inspection of visitors. An interesting concession on the part of the late owner (the gentleman hurrying to catch up with the dogs that had got a bit of a start on him),-may here be mentioned. He included all of the contents of the castle for the price paid, and the deed,

, but I was not dismayed. With a blithesome disregard for expenses, I despatched Rudolph, the elder of the two sons to Linz with instructions

ay and begged me to return to Vienna with them. But, full of the project in hand, I would not be moved. With the house full of carpenters, blacksmiths, masons, locks

wallows' nests, the beds aired and the larder stocked. Just as they were leaving, my secretary and my valet put in an appearance, having been summoned from Vienna the day before. I confess I was glad to see

e space that reached above me to the vaulted ceiling. I knew there was a ceiling, for I had seen its beams during the daylight hours, but to save my soul I couldn't imagine anyth

more than glad to see Poopendyke clambering up the path with his typewriter in one hand and his green baise bag in t

a rough hewn slab some ten feet square surmounted by a portcullis that has every intention o

etually rubbing his knees together when he walks. I shudder to think of what wou

a climb, isn't it?

got no farther than this, and to my certain knowledge this unfinished r

id I in some haste. I felt sorry for hi

oked up, not at me but at the frowning

explained nervously, divining his thoughts

wn if we jostled it carelessly," he

ret with some uneasiness. My face brightened suddenly. "That particular section of the castle is uninhabit

ting servant, looked

s need pressing, sir,"

hot water for

you need, Britton," said I, happy o

sir," said he, feeling o

arm to counteract the feeling of utter insignificance I was experiencing at the

ing reconstructed in the language of six or eight nations, and everybody was happy. I had no idea there were so many tinsmiths in the world. Every artisan in the town across the river seems to have felt it his duty to come over and help the me

the cost of labour as well as living had gone up appreciably since our installation. In fa

men. Today we had thirty new ones scrubbing the loggia on the gun-room floor, and they all seem to have apprentices working under them. The carpenters and plasterers were not so numerous to-day.

I exclaimed

They break nearly a

nkrupt, sir, if w

ever mind," I said, "we

ds, sir, that it will take a

nished to our satisfaction by the end of the mo

off, Mr. Smart. They don't s

ust the same." And tha

got to go to w

aid for nearly two years. They have put in a claim. The la

them at onc

y know all the keys. Yesterday I was nearly two hours in getting to the kitchen for a conference with Mrs. Schmick

all the name of the administration chamber at the head of the

so are lost," was his

ieved

ed to a small car which could be hauled up the cliff by a hitherto wasted human energy, and as readily lowered. It sounded feasible and I instructed him to have the extraordinary railway built, but to be sure that the safety device clutches in the cog wheels were sound and trusty. It would prove to be an

s if stupefied at the white figure of a

my bedroom windows. My room was in the western wing of the castle, facing the river. The eastern wing mounted even higher than the one in which we were living, and was topped by

ir that Britton had selected for me, and puffed at my pipe, not quite sure that my serenity was real or assumed. This was all costing

ical instant and I don't believe I ever felt c

od in the topmost balcony of the eastern wing, fully revealed by the last glo