The dreaming architect had turned on him like one under sudden electric compulsion; he shook himself into unbelievable alertness. "The--er--trees? Left standing?" Mr. Pawket smiled indulgently. He scratched a match on the seat of his overalls and lighted his pipe, answering between puffs: "I guess you 'm new to the business, ain't ye? Don't ye know, boy, the fust thing ye do when ye set out to build a house is to lay all the trees low? Some does it with dunnamite; some does it with mules and swearin'--anything to root out the pesky things." An extraordinary look of terror had swept the architect's face. "Nervous," noted Mr. Pawket, "nervous! Maw'll have to feed him up with buttermilk and put drops into his coffee. Them city people is always nagged into nerves." The old man continued in fatherly fashion: "Now, you wantin' to make all clear for anything as sizable as a vanilla, fust thing we do is to 'scratch off the trees.' I can git you plenty fellers handy with ax and saw, but when it comes to them cussed roots, why, then, you 'm goin' to want dunnamite." The architect bowed his head thoughtfully. As the two took the little bronzed path leading to the natural park-land dark with tapering cedars, he gave a puzzled look at the old farmer. At last he seemed struck by an idea and said, slowly: "Do you know, Mr. Pawket, we architects are often a little vague; we need so much to--er--confer--and--er--ahem!--consult. Now, really, I should be so interested. Just what are your personal preferences with regard to the construction of an Italian villa?" Mr. Pawket was for the moment slightly dazed. He surmised that the question placed him somewhat at a disadvantage; yet, somehow, it seemed to him that he knew a good deal about Italian villas. Gathering together certain impressions derived from the conversation of the twins, from a picture seen on a calendar, from the one lurid film of his experience, and from certain opulent descriptions of the building of the Tabernacle, it seemed to him that he knew a little something about occult species of architecture. He not immodestly presented his ideas. "I take it"--squashing ruminatively through puddles--"I take it that the vanilla idee is kinder intricate, ain't it?--somethin' fancy and grand like a castle? Two or three cupolos, er course, and all run around with stoops and balconies; marble staircases inside." Mr. Pawket added this carelessly as one used to the larger handling of details. "High sideboards set out in silver in the dinin'-room--a reel handsome phonnygraft into the front room and statoos on the gateposts." The architect receiving this preliminary sketch with such silent respect, Mr. Pawket gained courage and resumed: