Looking first at the pauper, then at me, the Italian leaned over and whispered to me, "I think I understand. You can have the shirt for sixty, and I'll put in a pair of socks, too."
Thus we had become a fraternity; all were poor, the stronger woe helping the weaker.... When his toilet was complete the poor man looked half a head taller.
"
Shall I wrap up your old cap for you?" the salesman asked, and the other laughed a broken, long-disused laugh.
"I guess I won't need it any more," he said, turning to me.
His face had changed like the children's valentines that grow at a touch from a blank card to a glimpse of paradise.
Once in the street again we shook hands. I was going back to my supper. He was going, the charity directors would say, to pawn his shirt and coat.
The man had evidently not more than a few months to live; I was leaving Chicago the following day. We would undoubtedly never meet again.
As his bony hand lay in mine, his eyes looked straight at me. "Thank you," he said, and his last words were these:
"I'll stand by you."