This man had brought brains to his aid.  He had reared dragons from the egg, in his laboratory, he had watched over them like a mother, and patiently studied them and experimented upon them while they grew.  Thus he had found out that fire was the life principle of a dragon; put out the dragon’s fires and it could make steam no longer, and must die.  He could not put out a fire with a spear, therefore he invented the extinguisher.  The dragon being dead, the emperor fell on the hero’s neck and said: 

“Deliverer, name your request,” at the same time beckoning out behind with his heel for a detachment of his daughters to form and advance.  But the tramp gave them no observance.  He simply said: 

“My request is, that upon me be conferred the monopoly of the manufacture and sale of spectacles in Germany.”

The emperor sprang aside and exclaimed: 

“This transcends all the impudence I ever heard!  A modest demand, by my halidome!  Why didn’t you ask for the imperial revenues at once, and be done with it?”

But the monarch had given his word, and he kept it.  To everybody’s surprise, the unselfish monopolist immediately reduced the price of spectacles to such a degree that a great and crushing burden was removed from the nation.  The emperor, to commemorate this generous act, and to testify his appreciation of it, issued a decree commanding everybody to buy this benefactor’s spectacles and wear them, whether they needed them or not.

So originated the wide-spread custom of wearing spectacles in Germany; and as a custom once established in these old lands is imperishable, this one remains universal in the empire to this day.  Such is the legend of the monopolist’s once stately and sumptuous castle, now called the “Spectacular Ruin.”

On the right bank, two or three miles below the Spectacular Ruin, we passed by a noble pile of castellated buildings overlooking the water from the crest of a lofty elevation.  A stretch of two hundred yards of the high front wall was heavily draped with ivy, and out of the mass of buildings within rose three picturesque old towers.  The place was in fine order, and was inhabited by a family of princely rank.  This castle had its legend, too, but I should not feel justified in repeating it because I doubted the truth of some of its minor details.

Along in this region a multitude of Italian laborers were blasting away the frontage of the hills to make room for the new railway.  They were fifty or a hundred feet above the river.  As we turned a sharp corner they began to wave signals and shout warnings to us to look out for the explosions.  It was all very well to warn us, but what could we do?  You can’t back a raft upstream, you can’t hurry it downstream, you can’t scatter out to one side when you haven’t any room to speak of, you won’t take to the perpendicular cliffs on the other shore when they appear to be blasting there, too.  Your resources are limited, you see.  There is simply nothing for it but to watch and pray.