Show v. i N v. t i SEES GHOSTLY- GHOSTLY TRIO GOVERNMENT CLERK IN REMINISCENT REMINISCENT REMINISCENT MOOD Memories of Departed Personal Friends With Whom He Worked Cro Crowd d Memory of Old Old Jn in His Noonday Strolls t Strolling along the corridors of the treasury building In an apparently J dream dreamy and meditative mood an n old clerk who admits admits' that that he h has s passed t the time of life allotted to man by Dr I Osier Osler was was' accost accosted d by a representative tive of the Washington Star who- who proffered the traditional penny for tOi forbis his bis thoughts Well said he I am am thinking of ol the many many- men I have met in this building in my long ong career career and particularly par par- of three that I knew very very welland well and of whom almost every evry ev ry other oth r person at least everybody in Washington Washington Wash Wash- ington knew all about but I knew kneve tl them em well k knew ew them personally The first of these he continued was was Nathan an anS S Sargent His nom df dt plume lume was Oliver Of ot course course you know know that His office when J he was commissioner of was on th the floor above to the right ot of s the center of the building from Fifteenth Fifteenth Fir Fir- street One of the courtliest of ot 1 men a thorough gentleman of the theold old school sCho l as the term Is kind Is-kind kind and genial to a all all I his subordinates I can can see him now he said i In my minds mind's eye Horatio he quoted as the Star man evinced a disposition to get a It glimpse of the old author himself Right here where we are standing the old clerk said pointing at one of oJ the rooms in the main corridor waGen war wa vas vas- Gen Spinners Spinner's office I knew him personally also and recollect when his office was moved Into its more mora a spacious quarters in the new northern northern northern north north- ern wi wing g of the building That old guardian of the public m moneys eys was everybody's friend Visitors to WashIngton Washington Wash Was hIngton h- h ington were always anxious to greet r him and nd they were were gratified for h he was glad to meet strangers all the time Lord how the women in his bureau lov loved d him and the men also for tor that matter matter I was here when he ha came and here when he went 1 There is another man that I met la laa In Ina a spiritual sense as I take this pedestrian I trian exercise at almost every every- noon i hour after I have disposed of my br bread ad and cheese luncheon and that was war Walt Whitman the the poet He was was like the others my personal friend He was not in this part of the bul building buildIng build build- d- d i Ing but In that section of the new 1 f s southern wing al allotted In those days 1 to the attorney general attorney general when the department department de de- r of justice had its local habitation habitation habl- habl tation under this roof I 1 remember when Whitman's Leaves of Grass Grass' grated too too harshly upon the sensibilities sensibilities i ties of certain people and he lost his hla place in fn one of the other departments i There There is no use In describing him to you you Everybody in the city knew jr f Walt Whitman but I only mention him as the third In Inthe the trio of ghosts J l I fancy I see in my Tony littler little round of exercise ex ex- ex x in these passages There are are men in this department older than I am he concluded but butI I doubt if any of them enjoyed the close personal friendship of the three I have mentioned to you In those d days ys we worked r only until 3 o'clock in the afternoon he he- said with a sigh Now we peg away awayan an n hour a and ami i a half later Things have changed in a hundred ways but times time's up up-I- up I must go back to my y desk And thus the old of of the reminiscent mood bade the Star 4 man an adieu |