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When my excellent uncle Christian Hâas, burgomaster of Lauterbach,
died, I had a good situation as maître de chapelle, or precentor,
under the Grand Duke Yen Peter, with a salary of fifteen hundred
florins, notwithstanding which I was a poor man still.

Uncle Christian knew exactly how I was situated, and yet had never
sent me a kreutzer. So when I learned that he had left me owner of two
hundred acres of rich land in orchards and vineyards, a good bit of
woodland, and his large house at Lauterbach, I could not help shedding
tears of gratitude.

"My dear uncle," I cried, "now I can appreciate the depth of your
wisdom, and I thank you most sincerely for your judicious
illiberality. Where would now the money be, supposing you had sent me
anything? In the hands of the Philistines, no doubt; whereas by your
prudent delays you have saved the country, like another Fabius
Cunctator--'Qui cunctando restituit rem--' I honour your memory, Uncle
Christian! I do indeed!"

Having delivered myself of these deep feelings, and many more which I
cannot enter into now, I got on horseback and rode off to Lauterbach.

Strange, is it not, how the Spirit of Avarice, hitherto quite a
stranger to me, came to make my acquaintance?

"Caspar!" he whispered, "now you are a rich man! Hitherto vain shadows
have filled your mind. A man must be a fool to follow glory. There is
nothing solid but acres, and buildings, and crown-pieces, put out in
safe mortgages. Fling aside all your vain delusions! Enlarge your
boundaries, round off your estate, heap up money, and then you will be
honoured and respected! You will be a burgomaster as your uncle was
before you, and the country folks, when they see you coming a mile
off, will pull off their hats, and say--'Here is Monsieur Caspar Hâas,
the richest man and the biggest herr in the country.'"

These notions kept passing and repassing in my mind like the figures
in a magic-lantern, with grave and measured step. The whole thing
seemed to me perfectly reasonable.

It was the middle of July. The lark was warbling in the sky. The crops
were waving in the plain, the gentle breezes carried on them the soft
cry of the quail and the partridge amongst the standing wheat; the
foliage was glancing in the sunshine, and the Lauter ran its course
beneath the willows; but what was all that to me, the great
burgomaster? I puffed up my cheeks and rounded off my figure in
anticipation of the portly appearance I was to present, and repeated
to myself those delightful observations--