Now, do you perceive the natural result?  Why, the noblest collection of echoes on earth was forever and ever incomplete, since it possessed but the one-half of the king echo of the universe.  Neither man was content with this divided ownership, yet neither would sell to the other.  There were jawings, bickerings, heart-burnings.  And at last that other collector, with a malignity which only a collector can ever feel toward a man and a brother, proceeded to cut down his hill!

You see, as long as he could not have the echo, he was resolved that nobody should have it.  He would remove his hill, and then there would be nothing to reflect my uncle’s echo.  My uncle remonstrated with him, but the man said, “I own one end of this echo; I choose to kill my end; you must take care of your own end yourself.”

Well, my uncle got an injunction put an him.  The other man appealed and fought it in a higher court.  They carried it on up, clear to the Supreme Court of the United States.  It made no end of trouble there.  Two of the judges believed that an echo was personal property, because it was impalpable to sight and touch, and yet was purchasable, salable, and consequently taxable; two others believed that an echo was real estate, because it was manifestly attached to the land, and was not removable from place to place; other of the judges contended that an echo was not property at all.

It was finally decided that the echo was property; that the hills were property; that the two men were separate and independent owners of the two hills, but tenants in common in the echo; therefore defendant was at full liberty to cut down his hill, since it belonged solely to him, but must give bonds in three million dollars as indemnity for damages which might result to my uncle’s half of the echo.  This decision also debarred my uncle from using defendant’s hill to reflect his part of the echo, without defendant’s consent; he must use only his own hill; if his part of the echo would not go, under these circumstances, it was sad, of course, but the court could find no remedy.  The court also debarred defendant from using my uncle’s hill to reflect his end of the echo, without consent.  You see the grand result!  Neither man would give consent, and so that astonishing and most noble echo had to cease from its great powers; and since that day that magnificent property is tied up and unsalable.

A week before my wedding-day, while I was still swimming in bliss and the nobility were gathering from far and near to honor our espousals, came news of my uncle’s death, and also a copy of his will, making me his sole heir.  He was gone; alas, my dear benefactor was no more.  The thought surcharges my heart even at this remote day.  I handed the will to the earl; I could not read it for the blinding tears.  The earl read it; then he sternly said, “Sir, do you call this wealth?—­but doubtless you do in your inflated country.  Sir, you are left