use his wits well in shaping men, let Spenersberg answer.  His square-shaped head was covered with bright brown hair, which had a reddish tinge, and his moustache was of no stinted growth:  his black eyes penetrated and flashed, and could glow and glare in a way to make weakness and feebleness tremble.  His quick speech did not spare:  right and left he used his swords of thought and will.  Fall in! or, Out of the way! were the commands laid down by him since the foundations of Spenersberg were laid.  In the fancy-goods line he might have made of himself a spectacle, supposing he could have remained in the trade; but set apart here in this vale, the centre of a sphere of his own creation, where there was something at stake vast enough to justify the exercise of energy and authority, he had a field for the fair play of all that was within him—­the worst and the best.  The worst that he could be he was—­a tyrant; and the best that he could be he was—­a lover.  Hitherto his tyrannies had brought about good results only, but it was well that the girl he loved had not only spirit and courage enough to love him, but also faith enough to remove mountains.

If Leonhard had determined that he would make a friend of Spener before he entered the factory, he could not have proceeded more wisely than he did.  First, he was interested in the works, and intent on being told about the manufacture of articles of furniture from a product ostensibly of such small account as the willow; then he was interested in the designs and surprised at the ingenious variety, and curious to learn their source, and amazed to hear that Mr. Spener had himself originated more than half of them.  Then presently he began to suggest designs, and at the end of an hour he found himself at a table in Spener’s office drawing shapes for baskets and chairs and tables and ornamental devices, and making Spener laugh so at some remark as to be heard all over the building.

“You say you are an architect,” he said after Leonhard had covered a sheet of paper with suggestions written and outlined for him, which he looked at with swiftly-comprehending and satisfied eyes.  “What do you say to doing a job for me?”

“With all my heart,” answered Leonhard, “if it can be done at once.”

These words were in the highest degree satisfactory.  Here was a man who knew the worth of a minute.  He was the man for Spener.  “Come with me,” he said, “and I’ll show you a building-site or two worth putting money on;” and so they walked together out of the factory, crossed a rustic foot-bridge to the opposite side, ascended a sunny half-cleared slope and passed across a field; and there beneath them, far below, rolled the grand river which had among its notable ports this little Spenersberg.

“What do you think of a house on this site, sir?” asked Spener, looking with no small degree of satisfaction around him and down the rocky steep.

“I think I should like to be commissioned to build a castle with towers and gates of this very granite which you could hew out by the thousand cord from the quarry yonder.  What a perfect gray for building!”