“The Young Man leapt suddenly to his feet, gave a loud shriek, and made to beat his head against the wall. It was with difficulty that I held his hands and restrained him.
“‘Oh! Curse my birth!’ he cried in a paroxysm of despair. ‘And curse my generation! My day has come!’ He raved. He incoherently demanded miracles and alternately denied the Justice of Allah! Grown more subdued but still distraught, he moaned of his affections. He told me--what I had hitherto not known and what interested me very little--that he had a little sister, orphaned as he was, who, if he were put away, would starve or become the prey of strangers. ‘What could be done? What refuge discovered? Curse the day when his fatal dream had struck him! Curse his works! Curse the river! Curse the marsh! Curse the city!’
“And so on--the usual reaction of enthusiasts. It was most distressing. I still held his writhing hands firmly till he was calm enough to hear me, and then said:
“‘Listen to me. I have considered your case. I think I can rescue you. I have myself saved a little from my trading operations of the last two months in this town. My credit also is somewhat extended. _I_ will find what you need. For I respect genius and I do not judge by common standards----’
“I was proceeding when he burst out into extravagant gratitude; called me his benefactor, kissed my hand again and again, and irrelevantly alluded again to that little sister of his who really had nothing to do with the case. I checked him and continued:
“‘I will do more. You do not know your own value--I mean your own moral and intellectual worth--nor what admiration they excite in men who judge as I do that the rest is dross. Our enterprise is clearly lost’--he nodded his agreement. ‘My investment you may say is gone: or, at any rate, I must take it for what it is worth as a thing half-derelict and gravely threatened by the authorities. But _you_ shall not go under. _Your_ high talents shall not be wasted so long as I have credit for commerce.... Come. Our original agreement is useless now. It is waste paper. Well, we’ll tear it up.’
“‘Oh, sir!’ said he. ‘And what of _you_? All this trust in me and my work, all this fund of money laid out by you! All this kindness and support without which I----’