It was well that he should practise these simple pleasures, for apart from his own ailments, which increased with time, he was still troubled with financial difficulties. The purchase of the house had not been exactly prudent, as it added considerably to his expenses, and the success of the Philadelphia edition was not long continued. The royalty receipts soon dwindled to a very little stream, and his other earnings--though he was well paid for such contributions as the magazines accepted, and was retained on the regular staff of the _New York Herald_--were not large.[684] Word went round among his friends, both in America and in England, that the old man was hard up again, and a second time there was a hearty response. A fund, promoted by the _Pall Mall Gazette_ at the end of 1886, brought him a New Year's present of £80,[685] and individual friends on both sides of the sea frequently sent thank-offerings to him. Some Boston admirers attempted at this time to secure for him a Government pension of £60 a year,[686] in recognition of his hospital work. But Whitman disliked the plan, and though it was favourably reported upon by the Pensions Committee of the House of Representatives, he wrote gratefully but peremptorily refusing to become an applicant for such a reward, saying quite simply, "I do not deserve it".[687] His services in the Attorney-General's Department seem to have been adequately paid, and one is glad the matter was not pressed. The hospital ministry could not have been remunerated by an "invalid pension"; it was given as a free gift, and now it will always remain so. [Illustration: MICKLE STREET, CAMDEN IN 1890: THE LITTLE HOUSE ON THE RIGHT IS WHITMAN'S] From time to time special efforts were made by his friends to remove any immediate pressure of financial anxiety. Whitman, who was on the one hand generous to a fault, and on the other not without a pride which consented with humiliation to receive some of the gifts bestowed, manifested a boyish delight in money of his own earning, and it did his friends good to see his merriment over the dollars taken--six hundred of them[688]--at his Lincoln lecture of 1886 in the Chestnut Street Opera House. By way of profit-sharing he insisted on presenting each of the theatre attendants with two dollars. The repetition of the lecture in New York the following spring, at the Madison Square Theatre, before a brilliant company of distinguished people, including Mr. James Russell Lowell, "Mark Twain," Mr. Stedman, and Whitman's staunch admirer, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, brought him a similar sum;[689] while Colonel Ingersoll's lecture for his benefit in 1890 was yet more productive, and the birthday dinners also contributed something to his funds. But the mention of these financial matters must not be construed into a pre-occupation with the subject in the old man's later years; it troubled his friends far more than it troubled him.