“And what may your second errand be?” said Denham, with a sudden gravity of countenance, which showed that he more than suspected it.
“Well, the fact is,” began Summers, “it’s a little matter of begging that I have undertaken for the purpose of raising funds to establish one or two lifeboats on parts of our coast where they are very much needed. (Denham fidgeted in his chair.) You know I have a villa near Deal, and frequently witness the terrible scenes of shipwreck that are so common and so fatal on that coast. I am sorry to say that my begging expedition has not been attended with so much success as I had anticipated. It is not such agreeable work as one might suppose, I assure you, one gets so many unexpected rebuffs. Did you ever try begging, Denham?”
Denham said he never had, and, unless reduced to it by circumstances, did not mean to do so!
“Ah,” continued Mr Summers, “if you ever do try you’ll be surprised to find how difficult it is to screw money out of some people.” (Mr Denham thought that that difficulty would not surprise him at all.) “But you’ll be delighted to find, on the other hand, what a number of truly liberal souls there are. It’s quite a treat, for instance, to meet with a man,—as I did the other day,—who gives his charity in the light of such principles as these:— ‘The Lord loveth a cheerful giver;’ ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive;’ ‘He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord,’—one who lays aside a certain proportion of his income for charitable purposes, and who, therefore, knowing exactly how much he has to give at any moment, gives or refuses, as the case may be, promptly and with a good grace.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Denham, whose soul abhorred this sort of talk, but whose self-interest compelled him to listen to it.
“Really,” pursued Mr Summers, “it is quite interesting to study the outs and ins of Christian philanthropy. Have you ever given much attention to the subject, Mr Denham? Of course, I mean in a philosophical way.”
“Ha a-hem! well, I cannot say that I have, except perhaps in my capacity of a poor-law guardian in this district of the city.”
“Indeed, I would recommend it to you. It is quite a relief to men of business like you and me, who are necessarily swallowed up all day in the matter of making money, to have the mind occasionally directed to the consideration of the best methods of getting rid of a little of their superabundance. It would do them a world of good—I can safely say so from experience—to consider such matters. I daresay that you also know something of this from experience.”
“Ha!” ejaculated Mr Denham, who felt himself getting internally warm, but was constrained (of course from disinterested motives) to keep cool and appear amiable.
“But forgive my taking up so much of your time, my dear sir,” said Mr Summers, rising; “what shall I put you down for?”