stopping wherever a beckoning hand appeared at a window. And bundles of
clothing, boxes of provisions, anything, everything that people would
give, he gathered up with wild haste, and brief, warm thanks, and rushed
to the express offices for proper sorting and packing. Of course that
personal service was not really necessary. A modest man would not have
done it, but he was spectacular. His act pleased the people, too, and
really many were moved to give by it. Their fancy was caught by the
picture of the be-diamonded Jubilee Jim placing himself and his valuable
horses at the service of the terror-stricken, homeless Chicagoans.

Though he was himself the butt of most of his jokes, he often expressed
his opinions in terms as conclusive and quite as funny as those of his
world-famous reply to the sanctimonious fence-committee, who, claiming
that the laying of his railroad had destroyed the greater part of the old
fence about a country graveyard, demanded that he should replace it with
a new one. Scarcely were the words out of their lips than, swift as a
flash, came the characteristic answer: "What under heaven do you want a
fence round a graveyard for? The poor chaps that are in there can't get
out, and, I'll take my Bible oath, those that are out don't want to get
in! Fence around a graveyard! I guess not; I know a dozen better ways of
spending money than that!"

I heard much of his generosity on benefit nights, but personally I never
tested it. Before my benefit night arrived, Mr. Edward Stokes had caught
Mr. Fisk on a walled-in staircase, as in a trap, and had shot him down,
and then, in that time of terror and excitement, Jubilee Jim proved that
whatever else he had been called--man of sin, fraud, trickster, clown--he
was _not_ a coward! With wonderful self-control he asked, as the
clothing was being cut from his stricken body: "Is this the end of me; am
I going to die, doctor?"

And when the man addressed made an evasive and soothing answer, that his
hopeless eyes contradicted, James Fisk testily continued: "I want to
know the truth!" Then, more gently: "I'm not afraid to die, doctor, but
_I am_ afraid of leaving things all at sixes and sevens! This is the end
of me, isn't it? Well, do what you can, and, George, send for ---- and
for ---- [his lawyers], and I will do what I can. When can Lucy get
here?"

And so he quickly and calmly made all possible use of his ebbing
strength--of the flying moments--disproving at l