to their appropriate abode."

Another true and loyal friend was George Wood, associated with Mr.
Kendall in Washington, from whom are many affectionate and witty letters
which it would be a pleasure to reproduce, but for the present I shall
content myself with extracts from one dated May 4, 1849:--

"It does seem to me that Satan has, from the jump, been at war with this
invention of yours. At first he strove to cover you up with a F.O.G. of
Egyptian hue; then he ran your wires through leaden pipe, constructed by
his 'pipe-laying' agents, into the ground and 'all aground.' And when
these were hoisted up, like the Brazen Serpent, on poles for all to gaze
at and admire, then who so devout a worshipper as the Devil in the person
of one of his children of darkness, who came forward at once to contract
for a line reaching to St. Louis--_and round the world_--upon that
principle of the true construction of _constitutions_, and such like
_contracts_, first promulgated by that 'Old Roman' the 'Hero of two
Wars,' and approved by the 'whole hog' Democracy of the 'first republic
of the world,' and which, like the moral law is summarily comprehended in
a few words--'The constitution (or contract) is what I understand it to
be.'

"Now without stopping to show you that O'Reilly was a true disciple of
O'Hickory, I think you will not question his being a son of Satan, whose
brazen instruments (one of whom gave his first born the name of Morse)
instigated by the Gent in Black, not content with inflicting us with the
Irish Potato Rot, has recently brought over the Scotch Itch, if, perhaps,
by plagues Job was never called upon to suffer (for there were no Courts
of Equity and Chancery in those early days) the American inventor might
be tempted to curse God and die. But, Ah! you have such a sweet wife, and