Then came an old man, verging on fourscore, the very beau ideal of the merchant’s serving-man of the last century.  He had once been comparatively prosperous, but, judging from his cheerful face, perhaps hardly ever happier than he was now.  For fifty years of his life, he had been custos and confidential house keeper to a well-known firm, which, after four or five generations of unvarying prosperity, had sunk in the panic of 1846 into the gulf of bankruptcy.  In the general wreck that followed, old Benjamin was forgotten, or remembered only with a pang of unavailing regret.  He found a refuge, however, in some small garret, where he contrives to preserve his cheerfulness and his pigtail, the only outward and visible sign of his former respectability, and where he acts as master of the ceremonies to a clique of ancient ladies, his fellow-lodgers, to whom he is at once the guardian and the beau of the fourth floor.  When he had received his own little modicum of benevolence, he pleaded hard for the immediate settlement of the claim of one of his fair coterie, a widow of fourscore and five; and finding that his request could not be complied with, but that she must be left till her turn came, he retired to a corner of the room, and waited a full hour and more, until her business was settled, when he bowed ceremoniously, till his pigtail pointed to the zenith, and tendering his arm, escorted her home with all the vivacity and politeness of the days of hoops and high-heeled shoes.  I have scarcely yet found out the reason why it was that the spectacle of this happy, kind old soul, made me feel a little, only a little, ashamed of myself.

This cosy old couple had hardly tripped out of sight, when our prosy synod was honoured by the advent of a real and extraordinary phenomenon.  This was nothing less than a half-crazy poetess, who prided herself on speaking in rhyme—­and such rhyme, amusing from its very badness.  On she was going at a great rate, when she was called to order in a manner which admitted of no demur.

‘Mrs Margaret Maggs!’ roared the beadle; and the tenth Muse, brought to a sudden stand-still, ceased her oracular utterances, and, grasping her modicum of shining silver, vanished from the presence.

The distribution lasted the whole of the day; and it was a weary day for some of the poor applicants, whose turn came last, and who almost fainted for want of refreshment.  But all who deserved it, went home effectually relieved and gladdened; and many who did not, got a lesson upon the occasion, and learned that Charity is not always as blind as she is supposed to be.  The whole of the money collected is not distributed at once.  About a third part of the amount is reserved until the approach of the next ensuing winter, when a second distribution takes place, generally to the same applicants.

I have heard it insinuated before now, that City functionaries of all sorts are prone to take too good care of themselves, whenever they meet to consider the wants of the poor.  I may perhaps be allowed to say, that when we have a feast, we pay for it; and that not one farthing of any collection made in the City for the poor was ever, to my knowledge, appropriated to any other purpose.  As a respectable man, I, for one, would never countenance any intromission of that kind.