h, educationally or in any
other way, and, having turned out "bad" and sunk to the level of a bank
robber, had been detected in connection with three other men in the act
of robbing a bank, the watchman of which was subsequently killed in the
melee and escape. Of all four criminals only this one had been caught.
Somewhere in prison he had heard sung one of my brother's sentimental
ballads, "The Convict and the Bird," and recollecting that he had known
Paul wrote him, setting forth his life history and that now he had no
money or friends.

At once my good brother was alive to the pathos of it. He showed the
letter to me and wanted to know what could be done. I suggested a
lawyer, of course, one of those brilliant legal friends of his--always
he had enthusiastic admirers in all walks--who might take the case for
little or nothing. There was the leader of Tammany Hall, Richard Croker,
who could be reached, he being a friend of Paul's. There was the
Governor himself to whom a plain recitation of the boy's unfortunate
life might be addressed, and with some hope of profit.

All of these things he did, and more. He went to the prison (Sing Sing),
saw the warden and told him the story of the boy's life, then went to
the boy, or man, himself and gave him some money. He was introduced to
the Governor through influential friends and permitted to tell the tale.
There was much delay, a reprieve, a commutation of the death penalty to
life imprisonment--the best that could be done. But he was so grateful
for that, so pleased. You would have thought at the time that it was his
own life that had been spared.

"Good heavens!" I jested. "You'd think you'd done the man an inestimable
service, getting him in the penitentiary for life!"

"That's right," he grinned--an unbelievably provoking smile. "He'd
better be dead, wouldn't he? Well, I'll write and ask him which he'd
rather have."

I recall again taking him to task for going to the rescue of a "down and
out" actor who had been highly successful and apparently not very
sympathetic in his day, one of that more or less gaudy clan that wastes
its substance, or so it seemed to me then, in riotous living. But now
being old and entirely discarded and forgotten, he was in need of
sympathy and aid. By some chance he knew Paul, or Paul had known him,
and now because of the former's obvious prosperity--he was much in the
papers at the time--he had appealed to him. The man lived with a sister