The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1914-07-16
HOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SECTION SERIAL.
A Fool and His Money


chs"
"Well," said I, somewhat feebly,
"where do l come mi''
They caught the note Of surrender in
my voice and pounced upon their op-
portunity. Before they had finished
with me, it was quite thoroughly estab-
lished that / was not to come in at all
until my neighbor was ready to admit
me. They convinced me that I was
meek, futile suppliant and not the mas
ter of feudal stronghold. Somehow
I was made to feel that if I did, It be-
have myself I stood in considerable
danger of being turned off the place.
However, we forced something out of
Schmick before his stalwart sons came
tramping up the stairs to rescue him.
The old man gave us touch of inside
history concerning Schloss Rothhoefen
and its erstwhile powerful barons, not
to minimize in the least sense the
peculiar prowess of the present Amazon
who held forth tonight in the east wing
and who had some reason to suspect,
was one of the family despite the un-
mistakable flavor of Fifth Avenue and
Newport.
About the middle of the nineteenth
century the last Of the real barons-
the powerful, land owning despotic
barons, / mean-came to the end of his
four-score years and ten, and was laid
away with great pomp and glee by the
people of the town across the river
He was the last of the Rothhoefens,
for he left no male heir. His two daugh
ters had married Austrian noblemen,
and neither of them produced a male
descendant The estate, already in a
state of financial as well as physical
disintegration, fell into the hands of
women, and went from bad to worse
SO rapidly that long before the last quar-
ter of the century was fairly begun the
castle and the reduced holdings slipped
away from the Rothhoefens altogether
and into the control Of the father of
the Count from whom I purchased the
The Counts father, it ap-
pears, was distiller Of great wealth
in his day, and man of action. Unfor-
tunately he died before he had the
chance to carry ont his projects in con-
neetion with the rehabilitation of
Schloss Rothhoefen, even then a de-
serted, ramshaekle resort for paying
tourists and Mecca for antique and
picture Dealers
The new Country immediate prede.
cessor-was not long in dissipating the
great fortune left by his father, the
worthy distiller. He ran through with
the bulk of his patrimony by the time
he was twenty-five and was pretty
much run down at the heel when he
married in the hope of recouping his
lost fortune
The Schmicks did not like him. They |
lid not approve of him as lord and
master, nor was it possible for them |
70 resign themselves to the fate that |
lad put this young scapegrace into the
shoes, so to speak, of the grim old
narons Rothhoefen, who whatever else
hey may have been in high-handed |
sort of way were men to tn core. This
this creature without brains
'r blood this sponging reprobate, was
lot to their liking, if I am to quote
Conrad, who became quite forceful in
lis harangue against the recent order
# things.
He, his wife and sons, he assured me,
we're full of rejoicing when they
earned that the castle had passed from
count Hohendahl s hands into mine. I,
It least, would pay them their wages,
md / might, in pinch, be depended
Ipon to pension them when they got
90 old to be of any use about the
astle.
At any rate, it seems, I was dis
met improvement over the Count, who
lad been their master for dozen very
can and Improbable years. Things
night be expected to look up a bit,
With me at the head of the house. Was
t not possible for a new and mighty
ace to rise and take the place of the
.lorious R thhoefens? A long line of
Baron SchmartsF With me as the pros
'ective root of thriving family tree!
Vt least, that is what Conrad said, and
may be pardoned .or quoting him.