That was a long afternoon.... He had been gone less than six months; and yet was as much a stranger, as a young man coming in from the West for the first time. The hours dragged. The City did not awe him, but so much of it struck him in places tender. He could give and give; there seemed no other way, no other thing to do. He sat on a bench in Union Square, and talked with an old man who needed money so badly that Bellair reflected for some time the best way to bestow it without shock. The old fellow looked so near gone, that one feared his heart would break under any undue pressure of excitement. Bellair concluded he had better buy a stimulant first of all, so he led the way across the Square to Kiltie’s. They lined up against the bar, and warmed themselves, the idea in Bellair’s mind being to give something beside money. Now the old man (not in the least understanding more than it was the whim of the stranger to do something for him), was so intent on what was to be done that he could not listen. Bellair had to come to the point. They went to a table for a bite of lunch, and the spectacle of a beggar’s mind opened--a story lacking imagination and told with the pitiful endeavour to fit into what was imagined to be the particular weakness of this listener. For months, Bellair had not touched the little orbit of the trodden lives. The story was not true, for no single group of ten words hinged upon what had been said, or folded into the next statement. The old man was not simple, but his guile was simple, and the simplicity of that was obscene. Begging might be a fine art, but men chose or fell into their work without thought of making an art of it. The old man did not know his own tremendous drama. Had he dared plainly to be true, he would have captivated the world with his own poor faculties. Behind the affectations were glimpses of great realities--if only the fallen mind could accept his days and tell them as they came--just the imperishable fruits of his days. As it was, the whiskey swept them farther away, and the creature attempted to act; his pitiful conception of effects were called into being. The throb of it all was the way the world was brought back to Bellair. His whole past city life thronged into mind. This was but a shocking example of myriads of lives--trying to be what their undeveloped senses prompted for the moment, rather than to be themselves. This was the salesman’s voice and manner, he had seen in Broadwell.... He stopped his revery by handing over the present. The old man’s eyes were wild now with hope and anguish to get away; a mingling of fear, too, lest the great sum of money in one piece be counterfeit; lest the stranger ask it back, or some one knock him down and take it away.