“He still grumbled, however. He said that he was no scholar, that it sounded all right, but that he did not feel comfortable. I answered that I could not help his feelings, but it was a plain matter of common sense, and so dismissed him.
“I then announced my intention of strengthening the bridge considerably and making it sufficient to support any kind of traffic. And so I did, at a very considerable expense. When I had completed the task it was a fine structure which would take every kind of beast of burden and vehicle, and a constant stream of foot-passengers. The only exception I made was for elephants, which animal (I said) I might allow later, but not until I had had the whole thing thoroughly tested. These beasts, therefore, still had to use the ferry: but as they were few in number and difficult to handle they only increased my partner’s troubles.
“Meanwhile the fame of my bridge spread throughout all the neighbouring countries, it gathered upon itself the whole volume of commerce.
“The old ferryman came to me in a mixed mood of anger, panic and delirious complaint. He said that his revenue was falling with alarming rapidity, added (a little spitefully I thought) that my share of that revenue would be not a quarter of what it had been in the past year, and said very plainly that if I did not make some change in my regulations my own profit would disappear altogether: that nothing would be left but his original revenue and that even this was now in doubt. As I answered nothing to all this long plea but let him talk himself out he ended up by asking, with some irony, whether I was one of those rich fools who liked to throw away their money.
“Then it was that I answered him as he deserved to be answered, for I do not easily brook insult. I told him that I had mortgaged my share in the enterprise of the boats sometime before to a neighbour at a very good price before ever the bridge had appeared, that I was sufficiently pestered by this man who ascribed to me the continued decline in the revenue which I received and handed over to him, and that I would not have added to this perpetual annoyance the further complaint of my inept partner. I drove him from my presence and told him I desired never to see him again.
“I have no doubt that if I had been approached properly I would have made some sort of compensation to the neighbour to whom I had mortgaged at a fine figure my original share in the profits of the ferry. I had enjoyed a large sum which he could now never recover, and I might have let him have a fifth or a quarter of it back, merely as a piece of generosity. But when I discovered that he had himself resold his interest to an ignoramus who was at that moment trying to find a purchaser for his rapidly shrinking property I lost all patience with the combination of them and put every thought of the ferry out of my mind. The new purchaser foreclosed on his mortgage and got for the ferry one-third of what he had lent on it.
“It was shortly after this transaction that the old ferryman went mad. It began by his coming to my house daily and making scenes outside the doors. Then he took to breaking the windows, and at last to gathering crowds and haranguing them on his imaginary persecution at my hands. I was compelled to have him locked up in his own defence, and I am glad to say that a merciful fever soon relieved him of what had become incurable delusions. He did not recover his sanity, however, as is so often the case, even in the last few hours before death. He continued to call me the most dreadful names, and to rave, in his mania of persecution, shouting that he had been robbed and ruined. It was a pitiful ending to what had long been a useful if obscure life.
“As I could not bear to see the men whom he had employed starve I took them into my own employ for the making of a roadway to the bridge, for the further strengthening of it, the painting of it and so on, and sent all the ferryboats down the river where they would be of more use than at this part where by my enterprise and public spirit the bridge had come into existence. I purchased them as old timber from the owners and made an insignificant profit of some few thousand dinars.
“It is a pretty example of the way in which names cling to places that the point on the bank where the ferry used to ply is still called ‘The Madman’s Grave.’ For, indeed, the old fellow was buried, I heard, by his own request, close to where his boat used to ply.
“It was now high time to consider the whole question of the bridge and its finances. Through my goodness of heart and generous carelessness—defects or amiable frailties against which I have always to be upon my guard—the whole thing had got into a very unbusiness-like condition. The tolls were not more than customary payments, though I had raised them from time to time. There was no careful distinction between the different kinds of traffic. There were no regulations for the hours at which the bridge should be used, nor ready means of checking the accounts.
“The new bridge had caused the town to increase largely. Its governors and those of the adjoining districts were rightly concerned in its proper ordering.
“The authorities of the neighbourhood fully agreed with me that it was necessary to put the thing upon a more regular footing. I suggested to them that before going further it would be
