More strictly speaking, it was Leander who did the deed, I merely looked on and laughed, but Leander says that by laughing I lent him my immoral support, and am therefore party to the act.
Leander and I had been dining at the "Red House," which is a wine-shop that Gelett Burgess discovered in an alley not far from the county jail. Leander and I had gone there because we like to sit at its whittled tables and drink its Vin Ordinaire (très ordinaire) out of tin gill measures; also we like its salad and its thick slices of bread that you eat after you have rubbed them with an onion or a bit of garlic. We always go there in evening dress in order to impress the Proletariat.
On this occasion after we had dined and had come out again into the gas and gaiety of the Mexican quarter we caromed suddenly against Cluness. Cluness is connected with some sort of a charitable institution that has a house somewhere in the "Quarter." He says that he likes to alleviate distress wherever he sees it; and that after all, the best thing in life is to make some poor fellow happy for a few moments.
Leander and I had nothing better to do that evening so we went around with Cluness, and watched him as he gave a month's rent to an infirm old lady on Stockton street, a bundle of magazines to a whining old rascal at the top of a nigger tenement, and some good advice to a Chinese girl who didn't want to go to the Presbyterian Mission House.
"That's my motto," says he, as we came away from the Chinese girl, "alleviate misery wherever you see it and try and make some poor fellow happy for a few moments."
"Ah, yes," exclaimed this farceur Leander, sanctimoniously, while I stared, "that's the only thing worth while," and he sighed and wagged his head.
Cluness went on to tell us about a deserving case he had—we were going there next—in fact, innocently enough, he described the Seven Houses to us, never suspecting they were the beggar's headquarters. He said there was a poor old paralytic woman lived there, who had developed an appetite for creamed oysters.
"It's the only thing," said Cluness, "that she can keep on her stomach."
"She told you so?" asked Leander.
"Yes, yes."