"David, with the money we win on the tracks we'll tear up these roads, cut trenches, fill 'em with solid blocks of rock, lay 'em over with asphalt, make 'em as smooth as glass! What else?"
"You jest, Benjamin. That is a labor for a thousand men."
"I say, it's nothing to what we'll do. What else do you want? Turn your mind loose—open up your eyes and see something that's hard to get."
"Every wish is a regret, and why should I fail of gratitude to God by making my wishes? Yet, I have been weak, I confess. I have sometimes loathed the crumbling walls of my house. I have wished for a tall chamber—on the floor a covering which makes no sound, colors about me—crystal vases for my flowers—music when I come—"
"Stop there! You see that big white cliff? I'll have that stone cut in chunks as big as you and your horse put together. I'll have 'em piled on a foundation as strong as the bottom of those hills. You see the way those mountain-tops walk into the sky? That's how the stairways will step up to the front of your house and put you out on a big terrace with columns scooting up fifty feet, and when you walk across the terrace a couple of great big doors weighing about a ton apiece will drift open and make a whisper when you mosey in. And when you get inside you'll start looking up and up, but you'll get dizzy before your eyes hit the ceiling; and up there you'll see a lighting stunt that looks like a million icicles with the sun behind 'em."
He paused an instant for breath and saw David smiling in a hazy pleasure.
"I follow you," he said softly. "Go on!" And his hand stretched out as though to open a door.
"What I've told you about is only a beginning. Turn yourself loose; dream, and I'll turn your dream into stone and color, and fill up your windows with green and gold and red glass till you'll think a rainbow has got all tangled up there! I'll give you music that'll make you forget to think, and when you think I'll give you a room so big that you'll have silence with an echo to it."
"All this for my horses?"
"Send one of the grays—just one, and let me place the wagers. You don't even have to risk your own money. I've made a slough of it betting on things that weren't lead pipe cinches like this. I made on Fidgety Midget at fifty to one. I made on Gosham at eight to one. Nobody told me how to bet on 'em. I know a horse—that's all! You stay in the Garden; I take one of the grays; I bring her back in six months with more coin than she can pack, and we split it fifty-fifty. You furnish the horse. I furnish the jack. Is it a go?"