That was the _Sun_ way, and the _Sun_ printed the correspondent’s stories, whether they were one column long, or six. The _Sun_ could not see how an editor in New York could know more about a distant murder than a correspondent on the spot. It was the _Sun’s_ way, once a man was taken on, to keep him as long as it could. One day Mr. Lord sent for Samuel Hopkins Adams, then a reporter, and asked him whether he would like to go away fishing. “A Sunday story?” inquired Adams. “No, not exactly,” said Mr. Lord. “A vacation, rather. You’ve been fired. Go away, but come back, say, next Tuesday, and go to work, and it’ll be all right. Don’t worry!” Adams learned that a suit for libel had been brought against the paper by an individual who had been made an unpleasant figure in a police story which Adams had written. A few days after Adams returned to his duties Mr. Dana came out of his room and asked the city editor, Mr. Kellogg, the name of the reporter who had written an article to which he pointed. Kellogg told Dana that Adams was the author, and Dana strode across the room and bestowed upon the reporter one of his brief and much prized commentaries of approval. Then he looked at Adams more closely, and, with raised eyebrows, walked to the managing editor’s desk. “Who is that young man?” he asked Mr. Lord, indicating Adams with a movement of the head. Mr. Lord murmured something. “Didn’t I order him discharged a few days ago?” said Mr. Dana. Another but more prolonged murmur from Mr. Lord. Adams got up from his desk to efface himself, but as he left the room he caught the voice of Mr. Dana, a trifle higher and a bit plaintive: “Why is it, Mr. Lord, that I never succeed in discharging any of your bright young men?” Adams did not wait for the answer. This story, while typical of Lord, is not typical of Dana. For every word of censure he had a hundred words of praise. He read the paper--every line of it--for virtues to be commended rather than for faults to be condemned. “Who wrote the two sticks about the lame girl? A good touch; that’s the _Sun_ idea!” If a new man had written something he liked--even a ten-line paragraph--the editor of the _Sun_ would cross the room to shake the man’s hand and say: “Good work!” The spirit he radiated was contagious. The men, encouraged by Dana, spread faith to one another. The “_Sun_” spirit--the envious of other newspapers were wont to refer to those who had it as “the _Sun’s_ Mutual Admiration Society”--did and does much to make the _Sun_. The men lived the socialism of art. If a new reporter received a difficult assignment, ten older men were ready to tell him, in a kindly and not at all didactic way, how to find the short cut.