this formed a small debating club which met in Mr. Phipps's father's
room in which his few journeymen shoemakers worked during the day. Tom
Miller recently alleged that I once spoke nearly an hour and a half
upon the question, "Should the judiciary be elected by the people?"
but we must mercifully assume his memory to be at fault. The "Webster"
was then the foremost club in the city and proud were we to be thought
fit for membership. We had merely been preparing ourselves in the
cobbler's room.

I know of no better mode of benefiting a youth than joining such a
club as this. Much of my reading became such as had a bearing on
forthcoming debates and that gave clearness and fixity to my ideas.
The self-possession I afterwards came to have before an audience may
very safely be attributed to the experience of the "Webster Society."
My two rules for speaking then (and now) were: Make yourself perfectly
at home before your audience, and simply talk _to_ them, not _at_
them. Do not try to be somebody else; be your own self and _talk_,
never "orate" until you can't help it.

I finally became an operator by sound, discarding printing entirely.
The accomplishment was then so rare that people visited the office to
be satisfied of the extraordinary feat. This brought me into such
notice that when a great flood destroyed all telegraph communication
between Steubenville and Wheeling, a distance of twenty-five miles, I
was sent to the former town to receive the entire business then
passing between the East and the West, and to send every hour or two
the dispatches in small boats down the river to Wheeling. In exchange
every returning boat brought rolls of dispatches which I wired East,
and in this way for more than a week the entire telegraphic
communication between the East and the West _via_ Pittsburgh was