ist.

"Sir Hugh did not once remove his eye-glass; he would have
put up half a dozen glasses had he had them.

"'Well,' enquired Montaigne, as the after-cheering subsided.
'A grave, melancholy intellect, with a sprightly temperament;
a wonderful man. Who is he?' asked Sir Hugh, dropping his
glass.

"'His name, as you know is Amos Blackstone; he lives some
miles away; but he is a household name.'

"'Is he in business?'

"'Yes, a lawyer; a patent lawyer. Have you ever heard of
an institution called the Political Boss?'

"'Oh, yes. At home we use him to a degree, as a sort of
political Black Bogey, to scare naughty children who like to
play at Radicalism.'

"'Well, Amos Blackstone is a specimen of the Political Boss.'

"'Indeed? You surprise me,' gasped Sir Hugh. 'Don't mistake
me; they are not all like him. He is a lion among jackals;
the best political organizer in the State. But he is getting
crowded out by younger men. We soon turn our war-horses out
to pasture, in this country,' explained Montaigne."

No man among his contemporaries in Massachusetts had a larger
number of devoted friends than Adin Thayer. Many people who
were not counted among his acquaintances were attached to
him by sympathy of political opinions and by gratitude for
his important service to the Commonwealth. He did a thousand
things for the benefit of the city, for the benefit of the
State. Many bad men found that somehow their ambitions were
nipped in the bud by a process they could hardly understand,
and many good men were called into the public service in obedience
to a summons from a hand the influence of which they never
discovered. But there were four things he largely helped
to do which were important and conspicuous in our history;
I will not say things that he did, but they were things which
would not have been done, in my judgment, if the power and
influence of Adin Thayer had been subtracted; things accomplished
with difficulty and with doubt. He stood by Charles Sumner
when that great and dangerous attempt was made to banish him
from public life in the year 1862. It was a time when Charles
Sumner, as he told me himself, could not visit the college
where he was graduated, and be sure of a respectful reception,
when a very important Republican paper, the most important
and influential Republican paper in Massachusetts, declared
that Charles Sumner could not address a popular audience in
New York with personal