"And yet," he continued thoughtfully, "the man who wrote _Helen in Leuce_ was a poet. Or at least," he added, "one seventh part a poet." Though Jewdwine's lower nature was preoccupied, the supreme critical faculty performed its functions with precision. The arithmetical method was perhaps suggested by the other calculation. He could not be quite sure, but he believed he had summed up Savage Rickman pretty accurately. "Thanks," said Rickman, "you've got the fraction all right, anyhow. A poet one day out of seven; the other six days a potman in an infernal, stinking, flaring Gin-Palace-of-Art." As he looked up at Rickman's, blazing with all its lights, he felt that he had hit on the satisfying, the defining phrase. His face expressed a wistful desire to confer further with Jewdwine on this matter; but a certain delicacy restrained him. Something fine in Jewdwine's nature, something half-human, half-tutorial, responded to the mute appeal that said so plainly, "Won't you hear me? I've so much to ask, so much to say. So many ideas, and you're the only man that can understand them." Jewdwine impressed everybody, himself included, as a person of prodigious understanding. The question was, having understood Rickman, having discovered in him a neglected genius, having introduced him to the Club and asked him to dinner on the strength of it, how much further was he prepared to go? Why--provided he was sure of the genius, almost any length, short of introducing him to the ladies of his family. But was he sure? Savage Rickman was young, and youth is deceptive. Supposing he--Jewdwine--was deceived? Supposing the genius were to elude him, leaving him saddled with the man? What on earth should he do with him?