Some six or eight years ago the winter was very cold; the river was frozen, and all the “wharf-rats” were thrown out of work.  A near relative of the old gentleman came to the city, and passed the night at his house.  After tea he sauntered to the office to take a quiet cigar.  To his surprise, he found it filled with a crowd—­more than fifty—­of brawny, beastly-looking men.  The presence of the childlike old man, his face beaming with shrewdness and kindly humor, seemed alone to keep them from being a mob.  His manner to them said,—­“You poor wretches, I know how reckless you are; yet I am not sure but I should be as bad, had I been exposed to the same bad influences.”  These houseless vagrants had been coming every night, while the river was frozen, to get a dime for a night’s lodging.

The young man had been forced by the unpleasantness of the crowd to go and enjoy his cigar outside.  As he sat there, the ugly crowd filed out quietly, each with his dime, (the clerk distributing,) till the last man.  He seemed to feel very ill-used, and was scarcely clear of the door-way before he gave vent to his indignation:—­“I’ll be d——­d, if I don’t let Old ——­ know that I won’t be put off with a five-cent piece and a three-cent piece!  Let me ketch him out, and I’ll mash his,” etc., etc.

Glowing with righteous indignation, and glad of the opportunity, the young relative rushed in and exclaimed,—­

“Mr. ——!  I have had many occasions to remonstrate with you on your indiscriminate charities, your encouragement of beggary and vice.  The wretch who went out last is breathing threats of personal violence against you, because he has been put off with a five-cent piece and a three-cent piece!”

How was the indignant remonstrant mortified, when the old man simply turned his head to the clerk and said,—­

“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.