if at any time--say in
boyhood--Columbus had skipped the triflingest little link in the chain
of acts projected and made inevitable by his first childish act, it
would have changed his whole subsequent life, and he would have become
a priest and died obscure in an Italian village, and America would not
have been discovered for two centuries afterward. I know this. To
skip any one of the billion acts in Columbus's chain would have wholly
changed his life. I have examined his billion of possible careers, and
in only one of them occurs the discovery of America. You people do not
suspect that all of your acts are of one size and importance, but it is
true; to snatch at an appointed fly is as big with fate for you as is
any other appointed act--"

"As the conquering of a continent, for instance?"

"Yes. Now, then, no man ever does drop a link--the thing has never
happened! Even when he is trying to make up his mind as to whether
he will do a thing or not, that itself is a link, an act, and has its
proper place in his chain; and when he finally decides an act, that also
was the thing which he was absolutely certain to do. You see, now, that
a man will never drop a link in his chain. He cannot. If he made up his
mind to try, that project would itself be an unavoidable link--a thought
bound to occur to him at that precise moment, and made certain by the
first act of his babyhood."

It seemed so dismal!

"He is a prisoner for life," I said sorrowfully, "and cannot get free."

"No, of himself he cannot get away from the consequences of his first
childish act. But I can free him."

I looked up wistfully.

"I have changed the careers of a number of your villagers."

I tried to thank him, but found it difficult, and let it drop.

"I shall make some other changes. You know that little Lisa Brandt?"

"Oh yes, everybody does. My mother says she is so sweet and so lovely
that she is not like any other child. She says she will be the pride of
the village when she grows up; and its idol, too, just as she is now."

"I shall change her future."

"Make it better?" I asked.

"Yes. And I will change the future of Nikolaus."

I was glad, this time, and said, "I don't need to ask about his case;
you will be sure to do generously by him."

"It is my intention."

Straight off I was building that great future of Nicky's in my
imagination, and had already made a renowned general of him and
hofmeister at the court, when I noticed