Yet many persons charged this man with stinginess—­a charge to which every rich man lays himself open who does not give to all who ask him.  Even the rich must refuse sometimes, for there is no reason why they should answer all the calls made upon them—­a course which would soon impoverish them.  They must discriminate somewhere, and how this shall be done is a question which each must decide for himself.  Longworth exercised this discrimination in an eccentric manner, eminently characteristic of him.  He invariably refused cases that commended themselves to others.  A gentleman once applied to him for assistance for a widow in destitute circumstances.

“Who is she?” asked the millionaire.  “Do you know her?  Is she a deserving object?”

“She is not only a woman of excellent character,” answered his friend, “but she is doing all in her power to support a large family of children.”

“Very well, then,” said Mr. Longworth, “I shan’t give a cent.  Such persons will always find a plenty to relieve them.”

He was firm, and turned coldly from the entreaties of his friend.  Yet he opened his purse liberally to those whom others refused.  Vagabonds, drunkards, fallen women, those who had gone down far into the depths of misery and wretchedness, and from whom respectable people shrank in disgust, never appealed to him in vain.  “The devil’s poor,” he whimsically called them.  He would listen to them patiently, moved to the depths of his soul by their sad stories, and would send them away rejoicing that they were not utterly friendless.  “Decent paupers will always find a plenty to help them,” he would say, “but no one cares for these poor wretches.  Every body damns them, and as no one else will help them, I must.”  Yet he aided them in such a manner as to encourage them to rise above their wretchedness.

In his personal appearance Mr. Longworth was not prepossessing.  He was dry and caustic in his remarks, and rarely spared the object of his satire.  He was plain and careless in his dress, looking more like a beggar than a millionaire.  He cared nothing for dress, except, perhaps, that he preferred common clothes to fine ones.  One of his acquaintances relates the following story in illustration of this phase of his character: 

“Many winters ago, it will be remembered that a style of striped goods was quite popular with poor people on account of its cheapness, and that it acquired the name of ‘Hard Times.’  Every body with scant purses wore coats or pants of it, for the reason that they could not very well buy any other kind.  As the story goes, it appears that ‘Old Nick,’ as he was familiarly called, invested in an overcoat of this material, and took great pride in wearing it, much to the annoyance of the women folks.  It happened that one cold, stormy night the faithful family coachman was at the house without an overcoat, and Mrs. Longworth, after very feelingly depicting his forlorn condition to her husband, solicited the