"You have here," said Colonel Doller, cordially, "a magnificent property, and I heartily rejoice to learn that you acquired it at a merely nominal price. Has it occurred to you, my dear sir, that this tract, with its majestic sweep of lawn and its picturesque glory of shade trees, presents tremendous possibilities--in fact, secures to you the opportunity of comprehending riches beyond the dreams of avarice? Let us be seated upon this pile of bricks while I unfold to you a panorama of potentialities." X COLONEL DOLLER'S GREAT IDEA Colonel Bobbett Doller and I sat down, side by side, on the pile of bricks, and the colonel proceeded straightway to disclose pleasing visions to my mind's eye. "You are doubtless aware," said the colonel, "that you are not, in the severest acceptation of the term, a business man?" "Alas," said I, "I am compelled in all candor to admit that lamentable fact." "Then," continued the colonel, "you probably do not know that this noble expanse of high ground upon which your stately residence is reared is the exact centre of a radius of eighty miles. In other words, did the power of your vision extend eighty miles you would be able to see for yourself from the roof of your superb house that this point is in fact the centre of a radius representing a stretch in any and every direction of eighty miles." "No, I had never supposed it possible," said I. "It is, nevertheless, a demonstrable fact," said Colonel Doller. "It is more notorious, however, that this property of yours (designated in the records as the south half of lot 16, Terhune's addition, section 9, township of Pond View)"---- "Page 273, volume 105," said I, interrupting him; for I suddenly recalled the superscription on the warranty deed.