known to me--the last-named especially, for he was good enough to take
notice of me as a boy. In business circles among prominent men who
still survive, Thomas M. Howe, James Park, C.G. Hussey, Benjamin F.
Jones, William Thaw, John Chalfant, Colonel Herron were great men to
whom the messenger boys looked as models, and not bad models either,
as their lives proved. [Alas! all dead as I revise this paragraph in
1906, so steadily moves the solemn procession.]

My life as a telegraph messenger was in every respect a happy one,
and it was while in this position that I laid the foundation of my
closest friendships. The senior messenger boy being promoted, a new
boy was needed, and he came in the person of David McCargo, afterwards
the well-known superintendent of the Allegheny Valley Railway. He was
made my companion and we had to deliver all the messages from the
Eastern line, while two other boys delivered the messages from the
West. The Eastern and Western Telegraph Companies were then separate,
although occupying the same building. "Davy" and I became firm friends
at once, one great bond being that he was Scotch; for, although "Davy"
was born in America, his father was quite as much a Scotsman, even in
speech, as my own father.

A short time after "Davy's" appointment a third boy was required, and
this time I was asked if I could find a suitable one. This I had no
difficulty in doing in my chum, Robert Pitcairn, later on my successor
as superintendent and general agent at Pittsburgh of the Pennsylvania
Railroad. Robert, like myself, was not only Scotch, but Scotch-born,
so that "Davy," "Bob," and "Andy" became the three Scotch boys who
delivered all the messages of the Eastern Telegraph Line in
Pittsburgh, for the then magnificent salary of two and a half dollars
per week. It was the duty of the boys to sweep the office each