hen he saw this, calculating what these beams would fetch; but Michel
said, 'Well, these are for my travelling on, with those chips I should
not be able to get on at all.' His master was going to make him a
present of a pair of boots, but throwing them aside, Michel brought out
a pair the largest that had ever been seen, and my grandfather assured
me they weighed a hundred pounds and were five feet long.

"The float started; and if Michel had before astonished the
wood-cutters, he perfectly astonished the raftsmen; for his raft,
instead of drifting slowly down the river as they thought it would, by
reason of the immense beams, darted on like an arrow, as soon as they
came into the Neckar. If the river took a turn, or if they came to any
part where they had a difficulty in keeping the middle stream or were
in danger of running aground, Michel always jumped into the water,
pushing his float either to the right or to the left, so that he glided
past without danger. If they came to a part where the river ran
straight, Michel often sprang to the foremost raft, and making all put
up their poles, fixed his own enormous pole in the sand, and by one
push made the float dart along, so that it seemed as if the land,
trees, and villages were flying by them. Thus they came in half the
time they generally occupied to Cologne on the Rhine, where they
formerly used to sell their timber. Here Michel said, 'You are but
sorry merchants and know nothing of your advantage. Think you these
Colognese want all the timber from the Schwarzwald for themselves? I
tell you no, they buy it of you for half its value, and sell it dear to
Holland. Let us sell our small beams here, and go to Holland with the
large ones; what we get above the ordinary price is our own profit.'

"Thus spoke the subtle Michel, and the others consented; some because
they liked to go and see Holland, some for the sake of the money. Only
one man was honest, and endeavoured to dissuade them from putting the
property of their master in jeopardy or cheating him out of the higher
price. However they did not listen to him and forgot his words, while
Michel forgot them not. So they went down the Rhine with the timber,
and Michel, guiding the float soon brought them to Rotterdam. Here
they were offered four times as much as at Cologne, and particularly
the large beams of Michel fetched a very high sum. When the
Schwarzwaelders beheld the money, they were almost beside t