"Mark, why did you not give that man his dime?"
"I had given out all the dimes, Sir, and I gave him all I had left."
"See that he gets his extra two cents the next time he comes. I have no doubt I should have been mad, if I had been in his place."
A forlorn-looking man once came and asked for help.
"I am afraid to give you money. I think I know how you will spend it."
Of course the man protested that strong drink was an abomination unto him,—that what his nature most craved was "pure, fresh milk."
The old man, with a look in which it would be hard to say whether shrewdness or credulity predominated, at once hastened to the milk-cellar and returned with a glass of milk; the fellow swallowed the dose with an eager reluctance quite comical to behold, but which excited no movement in the muscles of the old gentleman's face.
On a raw, wet winter's day, a loafer applied for a pair of shoes. He had on an old, shambling pair, out at both toes. The old Wine-Prince was sitting with a pair of slippers on, and had his own shoes warming at the fire.
"Well," said he to the applicant, "you do look rather badly off, for such a cold, wet day; here, see if these shoes will fit you," handing his own.
The fellow tried them on and pronounced them a complete fit, and went on his way rejoicing. The clerk was amused, half an hour after, to see the old gentleman searching for his shoes and wondering what had become of them. He was reminded that he had given them to the beggar. On further inquiry, he found that he had no other pair in the house.