I heard an anecdote about him sitting a couple hours with fans after a convention and buying their drinks. Maybe he was just getting them drunk before he gave them the deadite treatment.
"Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow." Frankenstein