health, and his carelessness in the keeping of their personal accounts.
It is true that, because of this laxity on Mr. Kendall's part, Morse was
for a long time deprived of the full income to which he was entitled, but
he never held this up against his friend, always making excuses for him.

Affairs seem to have been going from bad to worse in the matter of
dividends, for, while in 1850 he had said that only 509 miles out of 1150
were paying him personally anything, he says in a letter to Mr. Kendall
of January 8, 1855:--

"I perceive the Magnetic Telegraph Company meet in Washington on Thursday
the 11th. Please inform me by telegraph the amount of dividend they
declare and the time payable. This is the only source on which I can
calculate for the means of subsistence from day to day with any degree of
certainty.

"It is a singular reflection that occurs frequently to my mind that out
of 40,000 miles of telegraph, all of which should pay me something, only
225 miles is all that I can depend upon with certainty; and the case is a
little aggravated when I think that throughout all Europe, which is now
meshed with telegraph wires from the southern point of Corsica to St.
Petersburg, on which my telegraph is universally used, not a mile
contributes to my support or has paid me a farthing.

"Well, it is all well. I am not in absolute want, for I have some credit,
and painful as is the state of debt to me from the apprehension that
creditors may suffer from my delay in paying them, yet I hope on."

Mr. Kendall was not so sensitive on the subject of debt as was Morse, and
he was also much more optimistic and often rebuked his friend for his