"Of course it is," said sister Jane's brother-in-law, who felt it a little to have been contradicted on the side of kindness by the hard-spoken Doctor. "Certainly! it's a deficiency of inner resources or character, and what to do with it is no simple question."
"That's what I was about to say," resumed the banker; "at least, when the poverty is of that sort. And what discourages kind people is that that's the sort we commonly see. It's a relief to meet the other, Doctor, just as it's a relief to a physician to encounter a case of simple surgery."
"And--and," said the brother-in-law, "what is your rule about plain almsgiving to the difficult sort?"
"My rule," replied the banker, "is, don't do it. Debt is slavery, and there is an ugly kink in human nature that disposes it to be content with slavery. No, sir; gift-making and gift-taking are twins of a bad blood." The speaker turned to Dr. Sevier for approval; but, though the Doctor could not gainsay the fraction of a point, he was silent. A lady near the hostess stirred softly both under and above the board. In her private chamber she would have yawned. Yet the banker spoke again:--
"Help the old, I say. You are pretty safe there. Help the sick. But as for the young and strong,--now, no man could be any poorer than I was at twenty-one,--I say be cautious how you smooth that hard road which is the finest discipline the young can possibly get."
"If it isn't _too_ hard," chirped the son of the host.
"Too hard? Well, yes, if it isn't too hard. Still I say, hands off; you needn't turn your back, however." Here the speaker again singled out Dr. Sevier. "Watch the young man out of one corner of your eye; but make him swim!"
"No, no," continued the banker; "I don't say let him drown; but I take it, Doctor, that your alms, for instance, are no alms if they put the poor fellow into your debt and at your back."
"To whom do you refer?" asked Dr. Sevier. Whereat there was a burst of laughter, which was renewed when the banker charged the physician with helping so many persons, "on the sly," that he couldn't tell which one was alluded to unless the name were given.
"Doctor," said the hostess, seeing it was high time the conversation should take a new direction, "they tell me you have closed your house and taken rooms at the St. Charles."