Then I found these men, whom some deemed
cynical, most ready to see the facts as they were, and to see
justice done.
I like to think of my last meeting with Charles A. Dana, the "Old
Chief" as he was always called in the office. In all the years I
was on the _Sun_ I do not think I had spoken with him a half dozen
times. When he wanted anything of me personally, his orders were
very brief and to the point. It was generally something--a report to
be digested or the story of some social experiment--which showed
me that in his heart he was faithful to his early love; he had
been in his youth, as everybody knows, an enthusiastic reformer,
a member of the Brook Farm Community. But if he thought I saw, he
let no sign escape him. He hated shams; perhaps I was on trial all
the time. If so, I believe that he meant to tell me in that last
hand-shake that he had not found me wanting. It was on the stairs
in the _Sun_ office that we met. I was going up; he was coming
down--going home to die. He knew it. In me there was no suspicion
of the truth when I came upon him at the turn of the stairs,
stumbling along in a way very unlike the usual springy step of the
Old Chief.
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