“If I did not take this risk I know what the result would be. If I did not let you have the money, I know you would go straight the downward road to destruction. I consider a human life and a human soul worth more than a paltry thousand.” Billy Madison was dazed, for he had not believed there was in all the world one person like Frank Merriwell. Such unhesitating and unselfish generosity astounded and bewildered him. “You must be very rich!” he said. “I am not,” answered Frank. “Every dollar I own in this world I have made myself. The money I shall let you have is the royalty paid me by a theatrical manager who is handling a play I wrote.” “But your father—the richest man in America?” “Has never given me a dollar of money. I have no doubt that he would if I needed it; but I’ve never been forced to ask him for it.” Madison’s wonder and admiration for this Yale man grew. “It’s wonderful!” he muttered. “I don’t quite understand it.” “I know some persons would call me easy,” said Frank; “but I’d rather be called that than think that I had the opportunity to save a single soul from destruction, and let it pass.” “That’s Merriwell!” thought Diamond. “He’s the only man I ever knew who was not afraid of being sized up as a soft mark. He had rather everybody would think him a mark than do a thing he fancies is wrong. If this world had a few more Merriwells in it, it would be a better place.” Diamond was right. The fear of being regarded as “soft” makes moral cowards of the most of us. We hesitate to extend a helping hand to a brother in distress for fear the world will look on, laugh, and dub us “silly.” And repeated refusals to offer aid renders us callous and hard and unfeeling, so that we give little heed to distress and do not seem to care when we see a human soul, like a disabled vessel, drifting down the stream of life to the cataract of destruction. “It’s none of our business,” we say, and let it go. It is our business—it is your business, my business, everybody’s business! It is our duty to stretch forth a hand to succor and save the unfortunate creature if it is in our power to do so. Twice this eventful night the hand of Frank Merriwell had been stretched out, each time to men who were strangers to him, for Madison, like Collins, could not be regarded as anything more. The cab rolled down to Broadway and the hotel was reached. They got out and Frank paid the driver. Straight to Merriwell’s room they went, and there Frank wrote for William A. Madison a check for nine hundred and seventy-five dollars, which the curly-haired chap said would be enough to put him straight before the world. Madison was grateful, but Frank cut short his thanks, saying: “The future will talk far better than any words you can say now. I am willing to wait to see what it will say. Go straight home, my boy. When you wish to send me money, forward it to New Haven. You may also give me an address, where I may write to you.”