There was evidence of the generous feeling—ill-balanced and spasmodic, it is true—on every hand. The poor were bravely, almost blindly, good to their neighbours in misfortune. The better-off were lavish—or had been until a few years previously—when they had certified proof that the cases were deserving. If a magistrate or a police court missionary gave publicity to a Pathetic Case, the Pathetic Case might be sure of being able to retire on a comfortable annuity. If only every Pathetic Case could have been induced to come pathetically into the clutches of a sympathetic police court cadi, instead of dying quite as pathetically in a rat-hole, one of the most pressing problems of benevolence might have been satisfactorily solved.
The Order of St Martin of Tours was one of the attempts to reconcile the generous yearnings of mankind with modern conditions. Its field of action had no definable limit, and whatever a man wished to give it was prepared to utilise. It was not primarily concerned with money, although judged by the guaranteed resources upon which it could call if necessary, it would rank as a rich society. It imposed no subscription and made no outside appeal. Upon its books, against the name of every member, there was entered what he bound himself to do when it was required of him. It was a vast and comprehensive list, so varied that few ever genuinely applied for the services of the Order without their needs being satisfied. The city man willing to give a foolish and repentant youth another chance of honest work; the Sussex farmer anxious to prove what a month of South Down fare and Channel breezes would do for a small city convalescent; the prim little suburban lady, much too timid to attempt any personal contact with the unknown depths of sin and suffering, but eager to send her choicest flowers and most perfect fruit to any slum sick-room; the good-hearted laundry girl who had been through the fires herself, offering to "pal up to any other girl what's having a bit of rough and wants to keep straight without a lot of jaw,"—all found a deeper use in life beneath the sign of St Martin's divided cloak. Children, even little children, were not shut out; they could play with other, lonely, little children, and renounce some toys.
The inconspicuous young man standing in Sir John Hampden's library—he was in a cheap boot shop, but he gave his early closing day to serve the Order as a messenger, and there were millionaires who gave less—found the thing he searched for, and handed to Sir John an unsealed envelope.
"I accept," said the baronet, after glancing at the slip it contained. This was what he accepted:
ORDER OF ST. MARTIN OF TOURS.
Case. . . John Flak, 45 Paradise Buildings, Paradise Street, Drury Lane, W.C.
Cause . . Street Accident.
Requirement . . Service through the night.
Recommender . . L. K. Stone, M.D., 172 Great Queen Street, W.C.
Waltham, Master.