The truth flashed on Marriott; this was deprivation--when a man could not get tobacco! He thought an instant; then he drew out his case of cigarettes, took them, broke their papers and seizing Koerner’s hand said: "Here, here’s a pipeful, anyway; this’ll do till I can send you some." And he poured the tobacco into Koerner’s bare palm. The old man took the tobacco, pressed it into the bowl of his pipe, Marriott struck a match, Koerner lighted his pipe, and sat a few moments in the comfort of smoking again. "Dot’s bretty goodt," he said presently. He smoked on. After a while he turned to Marriott with his old shrewd, humorous glance, his blue eyes twinkled, his white brows twitched. "Vell, Mis’er Marriott, you nefer t’ought you see der oldt man shmokin’ cigarettes, huh?" Marriott laughed, glad of the relief, and glad of the new sense of comradeship the tobacco brought. "Now tell me, Mr. Koerner," he said, "are you in want--do you need anything?" Koerner did not reply at once. "Come on now," Marriott urged, "tell me--have you anything to eat in the house?" "Vell," Koerner admitted, "not much." "Have you anything at all to eat?" Koerner hung his head then, in the strange, unaccountable shame people feel in poverty. "Vell, I--undt der oldt voman--ve hafn’t had anyt’ing to eat to-day." "And the children?" "Ve gif dem der last dis morning alreadty." Marriott closed his eyes in the pain of it. He reproached himself that he who argued so glibly that people in general lack the cultured imagination that would enable them to realize the plight of the submerged poor, should have had this condition so long under his very eyes and not have seen it. He was humbled, and then he was angry with himself--an anger he was instantly able to change into an anger with Koerner. "Well, Mr. Koerner," he said. "I don’t know that I ought to sympathize with you, after all. You might have told me; you might have known I should be glad to help you; you might have saved me--" He was about to add "the pain," but he recognized the selfishness of this view, and paused. "I’ll help you, of course," he went on. "My God, man, you mustn’t go hungry! Won’t the grocer trust you?" The old man was humbled now, and this humility, this final acquiescence and submission, this rare spirit beaten down and broken at last, this was hardest of all to bear, unless it were his own self-consciousness in this presence of humiliated age--these white hairs and he himself so young! He felt like turning from the indignity of this poverty, as if he had been intruding on another’s unmerited shame. "I’ll go and attend to it," said Marriott, rising at once.