a principal clerk in that office, who was married to my cousin, showed
and told me everything. I returned laden with knowledge which I embodied
in a report and my recommendations were adopted. Several clerks were
appointed and the general manager's office, of which I was chief clerk,
soon became efficient.

Wells afterwards became Assistant General Manager of the Midland, and
Frank Tatlow, my cousin and brother of Wells' wife, is now its General
Manager, in succession to Sir Guy Granet. I am not a little proud that
the attainments of one who bears the name of Tatlow, and is so nearly
related to myself, have enabled him to reach the topmost post on a
railway such as the Midland Railway of England. He commenced as a junior
clerk in the General Manager's office and worked his way step by step to
that eminent position. No adventitious circumstances helped him on.

I became fond of railway work, which it seems to me for interest and
variety holds a high place among all the occupations by which man, who
was born to labour, may earn his daily bread. My duties were certainly
arduous but intensely interesting. The correspondence with other railway
companies regarding agreements, joint line working, Parliamentary
matters, and many other important subjects, conducted as it required to
be, with skill, care and precision, was for me a liberal education. The
fierce rivalry which, in those days, raged in Scotland for competitive
traffic culminated often in disputes which could only be settled by the
intervention of the general managers, and these brought much exciting
work into the office. Again, the close and intimate relations between
the Midland and the Glasgow and South-Western involved interesting
communications, meetings and discussions, and the keeping of certain
special accounts which it fell to me to supervise.