Meanwhile--" the sympathetic Stranger shrugged his shoulders--"it is
the old story: genius spending its youth battling for recognition
against indifference, ridicule, envy; the spirit crushed by its
sordid environment, the drab monotony of narrow days. There will be
winter nights when you will tramp the streets, cold, hungry, forlorn;
summer days when you will hide in your attics, ashamed of the
sunlight on your ragged garments; chill dawns when you will watch
wild-eyed the suffering of those you love, helpless by reason of your
poverty to alleviate their pain."
The Stranger paused while the ancient waiter replenished the empty
glasses. The three friends drank in silence.
"I propose," said the Stranger, with a pleasant laugh, "that we pass
over this customary period of probation--that we skip the intervening
years--arrive at once at our true destination."
The Stranger, leaning back in his chair, regarded the three friends
with a smile they felt rather than saw. And something about the
Stranger--they could not have told themselves what--made all things
possible.
"A quite simple matter," the Stranger assured them. "A little sleep
and a forgetting, and the years lie behind us. Come, gentlemen.
Have I your consent?"
It seemed a question hardly needing answer. To escape at one stride
the long, weary struggle; to enter without fighting into victory!
The young men looked at one another.
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