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etext of The Soul of Nicholas Snyders
By Jerome K. Jerome Scanned and proofed by Ronald Burkey (rburkey@heads-up.com) and Amy Thomte.
Notes on the editing: Punctuation and hyphenation have been retained as in the original, except words broken across lines have been joined. Italicized text is delimited by underlines ("_"). A long break between paragraphs is represented by "***".
THE SOUL OF NICHOLAS SNYDERS, OR THE MISER OF ZANDAM
By JEROME K. JEROME
Author of "Paul Kelver," "Three Men in a Boat," etc., etc.
NEW YORK DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 1909
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY JEROME K. JEROME COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY Published, September, 1908
THE SOUL OF NICHOLAS SNYDERS, OR THE MISER OF ZANDAM
Once upon a time in Zandam, which is by the Zuider Zee, there lived a wicked man named Nicholas Snyders. He was mean and hard and cruel, and loved but one thing in the world, and that was gold. And even that not for its own sake. He loved the power gold gave him--the power to tyrannize and to oppress, the power to cause suffering at his will. They said he had no soul, but there they were wrong. All men own--or, to speak more correctly, are owned by--a soul; and the soul of Nicholas Snyders was an evil soul. He lived in the old windmill which still is standing on the quay, with only little Christina to wait upon him and keep house for him. Christina was an orphan whose parents had died in debt. Nicholas, to Christina's everlasting gratitude, had cleared their memory--it cost but a few hundred florins--in consideration that Christina should work for him without wages. Christina formed his entire household,