“Why, I know the history of that tree,” said the doctor. “Is that so? Can that be obtained? Well, how all things do conspire to success when you operate on a grand scale! Now, in your great subterranean-ventilating galleries, you are to place hot-air furnaces for warming the palace. One of these galleries can run directly under the court, and hot-water pipes, from a furnace located directly underneath, can warm your conservatory, Susie.”
“The swimming-baths are the most difficult to warm, I think. The silk works we will place nearer than we intended, and use the exhausted steam of the engines for the purpose. Baths there must be in the palace as well; but these swimming-baths I want to make a great feature. Nothing is so refreshing after labor as a swim. It makes the body supple and elastic. I don’t think water, as a moral agent, can be over-estimated. Make a community thoroughly clean outside, and the inside will soon set itself in harmony. People will never be moral so long as baths are a luxury.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Susie. “I can’t believe I shall live to see all this; or if I ever do see it really accomplished, I shall die of pure joy. Think of it! Hundreds of poor families having all these luxuries, these splendid conditions for culture and refinement, and all for no more money than they now pay for their miserable tenements! Can it be done?”
“It certainly can,” replied the count; “and hereafter it will be by labor organizations themselves.”
As they drove down over the old wooden bridge, the doctor remarked the necessity of having a new one.
“Yes, I have already thought of that, doctor. I was closeted with your town-council yesterday afternoon. I offered to build them a new iron bridge—have it all completed in forty days. You see I have peculiar advantages, for I am a large owner in the Phœnix Iron Bridge Works, in the Schuylkill Valley, Pennsylvania. I proposed to your town council to issue to me small notes, to the amount of fifty thousand dollars, receivable for all taxes and town dues of all kinds. I will endorse them myself, if necessary. With these I can pay the workmen.”
“That is a capital idea, Frauenstein,” said the doctor; “but you won’t need to endorse them. Those notes will circulate perfectly. Everybody wants the bridge. It has been discussed seriously for over three years.”
“When these notes come into the town treasury, it can burn them. They can easily be all redeemed and burnt in the course of a year, and your citizens will have their bridge without feeling the cost in the least.”
“Kendrick & Burnham, the bankers,” said Clara, “are members of the council. They will of themselves turn the balance, for they know you will have a good deal of banking business, which they expect of course to do.”
“Exactly,” said the count; “you see how all things work for our interest. I am promised an answer at their next meeting, which is to-morrow night.”