Porter Emerson came into the office yesterday. He had been out in the country for a week and was very cheerful. Just as he was leaving, he said: "Did you hear about that man who died the other day and left all he had to the orphanage?"
"No," some one answered. "How much did he leave?"
"Twelve children."
"I made a mistake," said Plodding Pete. "I told that man up the road I needed a little help 'cause I was lookin' for me family from whom I had been separated fur years."
"Didn't that make him come across?"
"He couldn't see it. He said dat he didn't know my family, but he wasn't goin' to help in bringing any such trouble on 'em."
"It requires a vast deal of courage and charity to be philanthropic," remarked Sir Thomas Lipton, apropos of Andrew Carnegie's giving. "I remember when I was just starting in business. I was very poor and making every sacrifice to enlarge my little shop. My only assistant was a boy of fourteen, faithful and willing and honest. One day I heard him complaining, and with justice, that his clothes were so shabby that he was ashamed to go to chapel.
"'There's no chance of my getting a new suit this year,' he told me. 'Dad's out of work, and it takes all of my wages to pay the rent.'