TRICKING AN ANGEL

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1983, 9 April 1906, Page 2

TRICKING AN ANGEL

OLD JACOB PINCHEM WA3 CUNNING AS WELL AS AVARICIOUS.

&nd When He Reoeived the Mandate to Go Out and Make Some One Happy He Obeyed It In Hid Own Peculiar "Way.

"And so New Year's is here againf" mattered Jacob Piuchem to himself as he hovered over the rusty old stove in his miserable room and shivered with sold.

Jacob Pinchem was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but he was a miser. The sufferings of the poor were naught to him—he cared not who froze or who starved amid the thousands around him. His parsimony extended to himself and he dwelt iu squalor and suffered cold and hunger. "New Year's, eh? And so another year has come?" he mumbled and muttered as tbe fire in the stove died away and night came down upon Greater New York. "Well, nobody need expect me

to make any change. I've got money, but I'm not going to throw it away on anybody. All this talk about the pool is bosh. Let the poor die if they can't take care of themselves." And as the old man grumbled and thought, his eyes olosod in sleep, and as he slept he dreamed. He dreamed that an angel stood beside him and laid a hand on his bead and said:

"Jacob Pinohem, you are a hard hearted man, and your record with the angels is a black one. I have come to give you a ohance to redeem yourself." "But don't ask for money 1" warned the miser.

"No, I will not. It Is simply that you go out tonight, the last night of the old year, and make some soul happy. Do this, and it shall blot out the half of an acousing record. What is your an awer?"

"I'll do it," replied Jaoob Pinohsm. "But if you do not" — And the angel was gone, and the old man opened his eyes, stood up and shook himself and presently went to his hoard and put a coin in hi' pocket.

"It is New Year's eve, and I am to make eome soul happy," he growled as he made ready to go out upon the street. "It is hard—very hard—but 1 have promised to do it." Five minutes later he was at the oufceher shop on the corner and saying to the bute: :

"Sausayu has been so blamed expensive for the laat 15 years that I couldn't ntlord to buy any. How much for a nant?"

"A bunk as big aa thiß," replied the itober as ho marked with his knife. "Make it an inoh more." "All rghfc, seeing it's you."

And Jaoob Pinchem -walked home with heels which could hardly be kept down on the pavement, and he opened the door of his hovel with a smile on his fa' % and he flung down his hat with a whoop and a laugb, and as he devoured that hunk of sausage he ohuckled gleefully to himself: "I've gone out and made a soul happy, and it didn't cost me but a cent, and if that angel is any ahead of old Jacob Pinchem then he's ready to go out of the miser business 1"