“What puzzles me is,” continued North, “that if Sir Crossly Cowel ’as no right to ’is millions, my old grandmother ’ad no right to ’er fi’ pun note!” (“Hear, hear,” and applause.) “I don’t know nothin’ about that there big thief Willum you mentioned, nor yet Lord Lorrumdoddy, not bein’ ’ighly connected, you see, mates, but no doubt this gentleman believes in ’is principles—”
“Of course I does,” said the social reformer indignantly.
“Well, then,” resumed North, suddenly throwing off his sheepish look and sternly gazing at the reformer while he pointed to the outrageously miserable man, who had neither coat, vest, shoes, nor socks, “do you see that man? If you are in earnest, take off your coat and give it to him. What right have you to two coats when he has none?”
The reformer looked surprised, and the proposal was received with loud laughter; all the more that he seemed so little to relish the idea of parting with one of his coats in order to prove the justice of his principles, and his own sincerity.
To give his argument more force, Reggie North took a sixpence from his pocket and held it up.
“See here, mates, when I came to this house I said to myself, ‘The Lord ’as given me success to-day in sellin’ His word,’—you know, some of you, that I’m a seller of Bibles and Testaments?”
“Ay, ay, old boy. We know you,” said several voices.
“And I wasn’t always that,” added North.
“That’s true, anyhow,” said a voice with a laugh.
“Well. For what I was, I might thank drink and a sinful heart. For what I am I thank the Lord. But, as I was goin’ to say, I came here intendin’ to give this sixpence—it ain’t much, but it’s all I can spare—to some poor feller in distress, for I practise what I preach, and I meant to do it in a quiet way. But it seems to me that, seein’ what’s turned up, I’ll do more good by givin’ it in a public way—so, there it is, old man,” and he put the sixpence on the table in front of the outrageously miserable man, who could hardly believe his eyes.