“Pooh!” said they, “we have no money.”

The beggar remained silent for a moment or two, and renewed his supplication.

“Do not, my fair young ladies,” said he, “stop your good ears against me.”

“Upon my word, honest man,” said the younger, “we have no change.”

“Then God bless you,” said the poor man, “and multiply those joys which you can give to others without change.”

I observed the older sister put her hand into her pocket.  “I will see,” said she, “if I have a sous.”

“A sous!  Give twelve,” said the suppliant.  “Nature has been bountiful to you; be bountiful to a poor man.”

“I would, friend, with all my heart,” said the younger, “if I had it.”

“My fair charitable,” said he, addressing himself to the elder, “what is it but your goodness and humanity which make your bright eyes so sweet that they outshine the morning even in this dark passage?  And what was it which made the Marquis de Santerre and his brother say so much of you both, as they just passed by?”

The two ladies seemed much affected, and impulsively at the same time they put their hands into their pockets and each took out a twelve-sous piece.

The contest between them and the poor suppliant was no more.  It was continued between themselves which of the two should give the twelve-sous piece in charity, and, to end the dispute, they both gave it together, and the man went away.

SOLUTION

I stepped hastily after him; it was the very man whose success in asking charity of the woman before the door of the hotel had so puzzled me, and I found at once his secret, or at least the basis of it:  it was flattery.

Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to Nature!  How strongly are all its powers and all its weaknesses on thy side!  How sweetly dost thou mix with the blood, and help it through the most difficult and tortuous passages to the heart!

The poor man, as he was not straitened for time, had given it here in a larger dose.  It is certain he had a way of bringing it into less form for the many sudden causes he had to do with in the streets; but how he contrived to correct, sweeten, concenter, and qualify it—­I vex not my spirit with the inquiry.  It is enough, the beggar gained two twelve-sous pieces, and they can best tell the rest who have gained much greater matters by it.

APPLICATION

We get forward in the world not so much by doing services as receiving them.  You take a withering twig and put it in the ground, and then you water it because you have planted it.

Monsieur le Comte de B——­, merely because he had done me one kindness in the affair of my passport, would go on and do me another the few days he was at Paris, in making me known to a few people of rank; and they were to present me to others, and so on.