“For a cent-and-a-half a meal!”

“Yes, sir, a cent-and-a-half a meal.  Ask any one in New London.  That’s all it cost me.  The mayor said he was surprised at the way I did it.”

“Well, but there wasn’t any particular personal service in the money they gave you?” I asked, catching him up on that point.  “They didn’t personally serve—­those who gave you the money?”

“No, sir, they didn’t,” he replied dreamily, with unconscious simplicity.  “But they gave through me, you see.  That’s the way it was.  I gave the personal service.  Don’t you see?  That’s the way.”

“Yes, that’s the way,” I smiled, avoiding as far as possible a further discussion of this contradiction, so unconscious on his part, and in the drag of his thought he took up another idea.

“I clothed ’em that winter, too—­went around and got barrels and boxes of old clothing.  Some of them felt a little ashamed to put on the things, but I got over that, all right.  I was wearing them myself, and I just told them, ’Don’t feel badly, brother.  I’m wearing them out of the same barrel with you—­I’m wearing them out of the same barrel.’  Got my clothes entirely free for that winter.”

“Can you always get all the aid you need for such enterprises?”

“Usually, and then I can earn a good deal of money when I work steadily.  I can get a hundred and fifty dollars for a little yacht, you know, every time I find time to make one; and I can make a good deal of money out of fishing.  I went out fishing here on the Fourth of July and caught two hundred blackfish—­four and five pounds, almost, every one of them.”

“That ought to be profitable,” I said.

“Well, it was,” he replied.

“How much did you get for them?”

“Oh, I didn’t sell them,” he said.  “I never take money for my work that way.  I gave them all away.”

“What did you do?” I asked, laughing—­“advertise for people to come for them?”

“No.  My wife took some, and my daughters, and I took the rest and we carried them around to people that we thought would like to have them.”

“Well, that wasn’t so profitable, was it?” I commented amusedly.

“Yes, they were fine fish,” he replied, not seeming to have heard me.

We dropped the subject of personal service at this point, and I expressed the opinion that his service was only a temporary expedient.  Times changed, and with them, people.  They forgot.  Perhaps those he aided were none the better for accepting his charity.

“I know what you mean,” he said.  “But that don’t make any difference.  You just have to keep on giving, that’s all, see?  Not all of ’em turn back.  It helps a lot.  Money is the only dangerous thing to give—­but I never give money—­not very often.  I give myself, rather, as much as possible.  I give food and clothing, too, but I try to show ’em a new way—­that’s not money, you know.  So many people need a new way.  They’re looking for it often, only they don’t seem to know how.  But God, dear brother, however poor or mean they are—­He knows.  You’ve got to reach the heart, you know, and I let Him help me.  You’ve got to make a man over in his soul, if you want to help him, and money won’t help you to do that, you know.  No, it won’t.”