At last Sam offered to “stand him” a meal, and over it the man told a pathetic story, how that he was a fully-qualified medical man in practice in York, but owing to his unfortunate habit of drinking he had lost everything, sold his practice, and had been compelled to leave the city. The proceeds of his practice had soon gone in drink, and now, with all the bitter remorse upon him, he and his wife and two small children were faced with starvation. Friends and relations would not assist him because of his intemperance. There was only one way out of it all, he declared—suicide.
Sam had taken him in hand. He had seen the wife and children, and then explained, as usual, that he was Mr Jones. Small sums he first gave them, and finding that his charity was never abused, and that the doctor withstood the temptation to drink, he had gone to an agency, the address of which he had found in the Lancet, and bought a comfortable little practice with a furnished house in West Norwood, where the doctor and his family were now installed and doing well.
In West Norwood to-day that doctor is the most popular and the most sought after. His practice is ever increasing, and already he has nearly repaid the whole of the sum which Mr Jones lent him, and has been compelled to take an assistant.
The doctor is still in ignorance, however, for he has never identified Mr Jones with Statham the millionaire. But was it surprising that at his house no guest was more welcome than the man who had rescued him from ruin and from death?
Truly money, if properly applied, can do much to alleviate the sufferings of the world, and as it is the “root of all evil,” so it is also the root of all good.
Chapter Twenty Two.
Tells of the Three.
“Well?”