His letters were childishly ill-conditioned and unreasonable; but, believing him to be in extreme indigence, I felt too sorry for him even to argue the point.
Again and again I had helped him, and it seemed sordid and silly to hurt our old friendship for money.

I couldn't believe that he would talk of my having done anything that I ought not to have done if we met, so as soon as I could I crossed to Paris to have it out with him.
To my astonishment I found him obdurate in his wrong-headedness.

When I asked him what he had sold me for the L50 I paid him, he coolly said he didn't think I was serious, that no man would write a play on another man's scenario; it was absurd, impossible--"_C'est ridicule!_" he repeated again and again.

When I reminded him that Shakespeare had done it, he got angry: it was altogether different then--today: "_C'est ridicule!_" Tired of going over and over the old ground I pressed him to tell me what he wanted.

For hours he wouldn't say: then at length he declared he ought to have half of all the play fetched, and even that wouldn't be fair to him, as he was a dramatist and I was not, and I ought not to have touched his scenario and so on, over and over again.
I returned to my hotel wearied in heart and head by his ridiculous demands and reiterations.