“Perhaps you will laugh at my first start, sir,” the doctor went on after a pause.  “I began my difficult enterprise by introducing the manufacture of baskets.  The poor folks used to buy the wicker mats on which they drain their cheeses, and all the baskets needed for the insignificant trade of the district.  I suggested to an intelligent young fellow that he might take a lease on a good-sized piece of land by the side of the torrent.  Every year the floods deposited a rich alluvial soil on this spot, where there should be no difficulty in growing osiers.  I reckoned out the quantity of wicker-work of various kinds required from time to time by the canton, and went over to Grenoble, where I found a young craftsman, a clever worker, but without any capital.  When I had discovered him, I soon made up my mind to set him up in business here.  I undertook to advance the money for the osiers required for his work until my osier-farmer should be in a position to supply him.  I induced him to sell his baskets at rather lower prices than they asked for them in Grenoble, while, at the same time, they were better made.  He entered into my views completely.  The osier-beds and the basket-making were two business speculations whose results were only appreciated after a lapse of four years.  Of course, you know that osiers must be three years old before they are fit to cut.

“At the commencement of operations, the basket-maker was boarded and lodged gratuitously.  Before very long he married a woman from Saint Laurent du Pont, who had a little money.  Then he had a house built, in a healthy and very airy situation which I chose, and my advice was followed as to the internal arrangements.  Here was a triumph!  I had created a new industry, and had brought a producer and several workers into the town.  I wonder if you will regard my elations as childish?

“For the first few days after my basket-maker had set up his business, I never went past his shop but my heart beat somewhat faster.  And when I saw the newly-built house, with the green-painted shutters, the vine beside the doorway, and the bench and bundles of osiers before it; when I saw a tidy, neatly-dressed woman within it, nursing a plump, pink and white baby among the workmen, who were singing merrily and busily plaiting their wicker-work under the superintendence of a man who but lately had looked so pinched and pale, but now had an atmosphere of prosperity about him; when I saw all this, I confess that I could not forego the pleasure of turning basket-maker for a moment, of going into the shop to hear how things went with them, and of giving myself up to a feeling of content that I cannot express in words, for I had all their happiness as well as my own to make me glad.  All my hopes became centered on this house, where the man dwelt who had been the first to put a steady faith in me.  Like the basket-maker’s wife, clasping her first nursling to her breast, did not I already fondly cherish the hopes of the future of this poor district?