ification," we put in at this point,
"but you must own that it doesn't appear in what you are saying. As a
good citizen, with the true interests of the poor at heart, you would
certainly have had your pampered menial spurn him from your door. His
being of your name, or claiming to be so, had nothing to do with his
merit or want of it."

"Oh, I acknowledge that, and I'll own that there was something in his
case, as he stated it, that appealed to my fancy even more than his
community of surname appealed to my family affection. He said he was a
Scotchman, which I am not, and that he had got a job on a
cattle-steamer, to work his way back to his native port. The steamer
would sail on Monday, and it was now Friday night, and the question
which he hesitated, which he intimated, in terms so tacit that I should
not call them an expression of it, was how he was to live till Monday."

"He left the calculation entirely to me, which he might not have done if
he had known what a poor head I had for figures, and I entered into it
with a reluctance which he politely ignored. I had some quite new
two-dollar notes in my pocket-book, the crisp sort, which rustle in
fiction when people take them out to succor the unfortunate or bribe the
dishonest, and I thought I would give him one if I could make it go
round for him till his steamer sailed. I was rather sorry for its being
fresh, but I had no old, shabby, or dirty notes such as one gives to
cases of dire need, you know."

"No, we don't know. We so seldom give paper at all; we prefer to give
copper."

"Well, that is right; one ought to give copper if the need is very
pressing; if not so pressing, one gives small silver, and so on up. But
here was an instance which involved a more extended application of
alms. 'You know,' I told him, while I was doing my sum in mental
arithmetic, 'there are the Mills hotels, where you can get a bed for
twenty-five cents; I don't remember whether they throw in breakfast or
not.' I felt a certain squalor in my attitude, which was not relieved by
the air of gentle patience with which he listened, my poor namesake, if
not kinsman; we were both at least sons of Adam. He looked not only
gentle, but refined; I made my reflection that this was probably the
effect of being shut up for two years where the winds were not allowed
to visit him roughly, and the reflection strengthened me to say, 'I
think two dollars will tide you over till Monday.' I can't say whet