ollars somewhere to help bury some one. (My spirit was not
so niggardly as fearsome. I was constantly terrified in those days by
the thought of a poverty-stricken old age for myself and him--why, I
don't know. I was by no means incompetent.) "Why don't you save your
money? Why should you give it to every Tom, Dick and Harry that asks
you? You're not a charity organization, and you're not called upon to
feed and clothe and bury all the wasters who happen to cross your path.
If you were down and out how many do you suppose would help you?"

"Well, you know," and his voice and manner were largely those of mother,
the same wonder, the same wistfulness and sweetness, the same bubbling
charity and tenderness of heart, "I can't say I haven't got it, can I?"
He was at the height of his success at the time. "And anyhow, what's the
use being so hard on people? We're all likely to get that way. You don't
know what pulls people down sometimes--not wasting always. It's
thoughtlessness, or trying to be happy. Remember how poor we were and
how mamma and papa used to worry." Often these references to mother or
father or their difficulties would bring tears to his eyes. "I can't
stand to see people suffer, that's all, not if I have anything," and his
eyes glowed sweetly. "And, after all," he added apologetically, "the
little I give isn't much. They don't get so much out of me. They don't
come to me every day."

Another time--one Christmas Eve it was, when I was comparatively new to
New York (my second or third year), I was a little uncertain what to do,
having no connections outside of Paul and two sisters, one of whom was
then out of the city. The other, owing to various difficulties of her
own and a temporary estrangement from us--more our fault than hers--was
therefore not available. The rather drab state into which she had
allowed her marital affections to lead her was the main reason that kept
us apart. At any rate I felt that I could not, or rather would not, go
there. At the same time, owing to some difficulty or irritation with the
publishing house of which my brother was then part owner (it was
publishing the magazine which I was editing), we twain were also
estranged, nothing very deep really--a temporary feeling of distance and
indifference.

So I had no place to go except to my room, which was in a poor part of
the town, or out to dine where best I might--some moderate-priced hotel,
was my thought. I had not seen my brothe