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 tended to be very busy for fear they should ask him a favor.

One day when he had tear beef, the poor shoemaker came to him and said:

“My dear Godfather, you have just made a killing. Won’t you please give me a little piece of meat? My wife and children are hungry.”

“No!” roared the rich man. “Why should I feed your family? You ought to save as I do and then you wouldn’t have to ask favors of any one.”

Humiliated by the refusal, the shoemaker went home and told his wife what his friend had said.

“Go back to him,” his wife insisted, “and tell him again that his godchildren are hungry. I don’t think he understood you.”

So the poor little shoemaker returned to the rich man. He cleared his throat apologetically and stammered:

“Dear Godfather, you—you don’t want your poor godchildren to go hungry, do you? Give me just one small piece of meat—that’s all I ask.”

In a rage, the rich man picked up a hunk of meat and threw it at his poor friend.

“There!” he shouted. “And now go to hell, you and the meat with you, and tell the Devil I sent you.”