The lad, who had tried to spring out of bed, and had succeeded only in climbing out rather slowly and shakily, looked up with a twinkle in his eye; then he answered very seriously:
“Yes, sir; even them. I’d hate ’em. I’d hate to have the fellows see me in ’em; but I’d wear them forever, rather than make her cry again. I can’t get over that. To s’pose that she, a rich lady living on the Avenue, should cry over an Alley kid! It ain’t nice to think about, her saying I’ve got to be her only, ‘one precious.’ I’ll about die of lonesomeness; but—it’s the wandering kindness, you know, sir. I’ll pass it on, and maybe it’ll all come right. Do you s’pose she’ll make me sit in front of a window and be dressed up, and make myself a show for the fellows to come and gibe at?”
“Those shoes all right, eh? Look here, Towsley. I’m not a ‘supposing’ sort of a man. I’ve no time to speculate over things. I have to take them as they come and keep hustling. That’s pretty much the way it is in the newspaper business, isn’t it?”
“Yes. You just believe it.”
“I do. Well, though I rarely give away advice—that being a luxury I dare not afford, in general—I’m going to present you with a bit now, as a kind of keepsake: Don’t you stop to worry or ‘s’pose’ anything. Life’s too short. Just keep hustling. Do right, as near as you can, straight along and all the time, and let results take care of themselves or leave them to the Lord who will do it for us. And remember one other thing: If you do a kindness to anybody you have to like them. Fact; you can’t help it. You will like them, whether or no. Now I didn’t care a nickel about you till I tumbled over you in the snow-drift. Never heard of you, indeed. But then I had a chance to help you, and right away I liked you. So I’ve been down-town, this afternoon, and bought you this outfit. Between you and me, Towsley, I shouldn’t care for the velvets, either. But they must have been all that Miss Armacost had on hand and so she gave them to you. These I’m not giving; I’m simply advancing. Men like us don’t care to accept what we can’t pay for, you know. Anything that Miss Lucy will offer you, you’ll have a chance to repay: by love, and attention, and the deference that a son of her own house would render a gentlewoman who befriended him. But you’ll have no further use for me, and so I’m merely lending you this suit. If you should ever be able, as you may, to collect what I’ve spent on it—about five dollars—you just remember the wandering kindness and send it along. I’d get a scrap of paper, if I were you, and write it down: ‘Five dollars received of Dr. Frank Winthrop’; and when you use something for some needy person, consider that it is so much toward the liquidation of the debt and write it opposite: ‘Paid Dr. Frank Winthrop, so and so.’ Understand?”
“Yes. I will repay, too. Though I’d rather do it to you, yourself.”
“Doubtless. Yet that doesn’t matter. The real thing is to be systematic and exact in our charities. Slovenliness or carelessness in such things is worse than a bad habit—it’s a sin. Now, how are you? A trifle queer in the legs, eh? Things in the room look a bit hazy? That’s all right. Effect of an active boy lying in bed. The air will set you straight. My! but you are a dandy in that suit! Fits you like a duck’s bill in the mud, doesn’t it?”
Towsley laughed, so gayly and loudly that anxious Miss Lucy tiptoed to the outside of the closed door and asked, eagerly:
“Can’t I come in yet?”
The jolly doctor gave a nod of his head and Towsley opened to admit his friend. In all his little life he had never been so well, so completely clothed as he was at that moment; and the consciousness of being suitably dressed went far toward giving him the ease of manner which belonged to the “gentleman” whom he aspired to become.