... One morning the book-keeper of the Herald, to whom my admiration for Dobbs was well known (I having frequently delivered glowing lectures upon his character from the mailing table to an audience of carriers, clerks, and printers), approached me and with a devilish smack of joy in his voice, says:
“I am afraid your man Dobbs is a fraud. Some time ago he persuaded the clerk to give him credit on papers. He ran up a bill of about seven dollars, and then melted from our view. We have not seen or heard of him since—expect he’s gone to trading with the Constitution now, to bilk them out of a bill.”
This looked bad—but somehow or other I still had a firm faith in my hero. God had written “honesty” too plain in his face for my confidence in him to be shaken. I knew that if he had sinned or deceived, that it was starvation or despair that had driven him to it, and I forgave him even before I knew he was guilty....
About a week after this happened, a bombazine female—one of those melancholy women that occasionally arise like some Banquo’s ghost in my pathway, and always, I scarce know why, put remorse to twitching at my heart-strings—came into my sanctum and asked for me.
“I am the mother,” says she, in a voice which sorrow (or snuff) had filled with tears and quavers—“of Mr. Dobbs, a young man who used to buy papers from you. He left owing you a little, and asked me to see you about it.”
“Left? Where has he gone?”
“To heaven, I hope, sir! He is dead!”
“Dead?”