Usually the man would, in the end, invite him to the home or the lodging-house where his wife and children were, and then, on ascertaining that the case was genuine, he would suddenly reveal himself as the good Samaritan.
To such men he gave himself out as Mr Jones, agent of a benevolent society which was nameless, and which did its work without advertisement, and extracted a pledge of secrecy. By such means many a dozen honest, hard-working men, who through no fault of their own had been thrown out of employment, had been “put upon their legs” again and gained work, and yet not one of them ever suspected that the shabby, down-at-heel man Jones was actually the millionaire Samuel Statham, who lived in the white house in fall view of the seat whereon they had first met.
Even from Rolfe he sought to conceal this secret philanthropy, yet the young man had guessed something of it. He had more than once caught him talking to strange men whose pinched faces and trim appearance told the truth.
The man whose vast wealth had brought him nothing but isolation and loneliness, delighted in performing these good works, and in rescuing the unfortunate wives and families of the deserving ones who were luckless. He loved to see the brightness overspread those dark, despairing faces, and to hear the heartfelt thanks which he was told to convey to the mythical “society.”
Never but once did he allow a man to suspect that the money he gave came from his own pocket. That single occasion was when, after giving a man whom he believed to be deserving a sovereign, he next evening found him in the park the worse for liquor.
He said nothing that night, but a few days later, when he met him, he gave him a piece of his mind which the plausible good-for-nothing would not quickly forget.
“Such frauds as you,” he had said, “prevent people from assisting the deserving poor. I’ve made inquiry into your story, and found it false from beginning to end. You have no wife, and the four children starving and ill that you described to me do not exist. You live for the most part in the bar of the ‘Star,’ off the Edgware Road, and on the night after I gave you the money you were so drunk that they wouldn’t serve you. Such men like you,” he went on with withering sarcasm, his grey beard bristling as he spoke, and his fist clenched fiercely, “are a disgrace to the human race, for you are a liar, a drunkard, and a blackguard—a man who deserves the death that will, I hope, overtake you—death in the gutter.”
And he turned upon his heel, leaving the accused man standing staring at him open-mouthed, utterly unable to offer a single word in self-defence.
This secret charity was Sam Statham’s only recreation. By it he made many friends whom he had taken out of the slums—friends who were perhaps more devoted and true to him than those to whom he had given financial “tips,” and who had made many thousands thereby. In many a modest home was Mr Jones a welcome guest whenever he called to see how “his friends” were progressing, and many a time had he drunk a humble glass of bitter “sent out” for by his thankful and devoted host who was all unconscious of who his guest really was. The world would have laughed at the idea of a working man standing Samuel Statham a glass of ale.
One case was old Sam’s particular pride. About eighteen months before, in the park one day, he came across a despairing but well-educated, middle-aged man, who at first was not at all communicative, but whose bearing and manner was that of refinement and culture. Three times they met, and it was very evident that the sad-faced man was starving.