a plan.  One fine day, however, he went to an experienced builder of the town and requested him to be in his garden at daybreak the next morning, with all his journeymen and apprentices, and a large body of laborers, etc., to build him his house.  Naturally the builder asked for the architect’s plan, and was not a little astonished when Krespel replied that none was needed, and that things would turn out all right in the end, just as he wanted them.  Next morning, when the builder and his men came to the place, they found a trench drawn out in the shape of an exact square; and Krespel said, “Here’s where you must lay the foundations; then carry up the walls until I say they are high enough.”  “Without windows and doors, and without partition walls?” broke in the builder, as if alarmed at Krespel’s mad folly.  “Do what I tell you, my dear sir,” replied the Councillor quite calmly; “leave the rest to me; it will be all right.”  It was only the promise of high pay that could induce the builder to proceed with the ridiculous building; but none has ever been erected under merrier circumstances.  As there was an abundant supply of food and drink, the workmen never left their work; and amidst their continuous laughter the four walls were run up with incredible quickness, until one day Krespel cried, “Stop!” Then the workmen, laying down trowel and hammer, came down from the scaffoldings and gathered round Krespel in a circle, whilst every laughing face was asking, “Well, and what now?” “Make way!” cried Krespel; and then running to one end of the garden, he strode slowly towards the square of brickwork.  When he came close to the wall he shook his head in a dissatisfied manner, ran to the other end of the garden, again strode slowly towards the brickwork square, and proceeded to act as before.  These tactics he pursued several times, until at length, running his sharp nose hard against the wall, he cried, “Come here, come here, men! break me a door in here!  Here’s where I want a door made!” He gave the exact dimensions in feet and inches, and they did as he bid them.  Then he stepped inside the structure, and smiled with satisfaction as the builder remarked that the walls were just the height of a good two-storeyed house.  Krespel walked thoughtfully backwards and forwards across the space within, the bricklayers behind him with hammers and picks, and wherever he cried, “Make a window here, six feet high by four feet broad!” “There a little window, three feet by two!” a hole was made in a trice.

It was at this stage of the proceedings that I came to H—–­; and it was highly amusing to see how hundreds of people stood round about the garden and raised a loud shout whenever the stones flew out and a new window appeared where nobody had for a moment expected it.  And in the same manner Krespel proceeded with the buildings and fittings of the rest of the house, and with all the work necessary to that end; everything had to be done on the spot