"Well, sir, you know she sat there and told me how her husband drank and how she didn't have anything in the house to eat, and so I just gave her all I had and told her I would see her husband for her, and the next day I went and hunted him up and said to him, 'Oh, brother, I wish you would open your eyes and see what you are doing. I wish you wouldn't do that any more. It's only misery you are creating.' And, you know, I got to telling about how badly his wife felt about it, and how I intended to work and try and help her, and bless me if he didn't up and promise me before I got through that he wouldn't do that any more. And he didn't. He's working today, and it's been two years since I went to him, nearly." His eyes were alight with his appreciation of personal service. "Yes, that's one instance," I said. "Oh, there are plenty of them," he replied. "It's the only way. Down here in New London a couple of winters ago we had a terrible time of it. That was the winter of the panic, you know. Cold--my, but that was a cold winter, and thousands of people out of work--just thousands. It was awful. I tried to do what I could here and there all along, but finally things got so bad there that I went to the mayor. I saw they were raising some kind of a fund to help the poor, so I told him that if he'd give me a little of the money they were talking of spending that I'd feed the hungry for a cent-and-a-half a meal." "A cent-and-a-half a meal!" "Yes, sir. They all thought it was rather curious, not possible at first, but they gave me the money and I fed 'em." "Good meals?" "Yes, as good as I ever eat myself," he replied. "How did you do it?" I asked. "Oh, I can cook. I just went around to the markets, and told the market-men what I wanted--heads of mackerel, and the part of the halibut that's left after the rich man cuts off his steak--it's the poorest part that he pays for, you know. And I went fishing myself two or three times--borrowed a big boat and got men to help me--oh, I'm a good fisherman, you know. And then I got the loan of an old covered brickyard that no one was using any more, a great big thing that I could close up and build fires in, and I put my kettle in there and rigged up tables out of borrowed boards, and got people to loan me plates and spoons and knives and forks and cups. I made fish chowder, and fish dinners, and really I set a very fine table, I did, that winter." "For a cent-and-a-half a meal!" "Yes, sir, a cent-and-a-half a meal. Ask any one in New London. That's all it cost me. The mayor said he was surprised at the way I did it." "Well, but there wasn't any particular personal service in the money they gave you?" I asked, catching him up on that point. "They didn't personally serve--those who gave you the money?" "No, sir, they didn't," he replied dreamily, with unconscious simplicity. "But they gave through me, you see. That's the way it was. I gave the personal service. Don't you see? That's the way."