After my disastrous encounter with Miss Love, I went south and brought up in St. Louis, where old "Top," the chief operator, gave me a place working a New York quad. This was about the worst "roast" I had ever struck, and it was work from the word go from 5 p. m. until 1 a. m. Work on any wire from a big city leading to New York is always hot, and this particular wire was the worst of the bunch. While working in this office I had several little incidents come under my observation that may be of interest.

The coy little god of love manifests itself in many ways, and the successful culmination of two hearts' happiness is as often queer as it is humorous.

Miss Jane Grey was an operator on the G. C. & F. Railway at Wichita, Kansas, and Mr. Paul Dimmock worked for the Western Union in Louisville, Kentucky. Through the agency of a matrimonial journal, Jane and Paul became acquainted; letters and pictures were exchanged, and—it was the old, old story—they became engaged. They wanted to be wedded and the more sensational and notorious they could make it the better it would suit them both. Jane only earned forty dollars per month, while Paul's monthly stipend was the magnificent sum of sixty, with whatever extra time he could "scoop." Neither one of them wanted to quit work just then, they felt they could not afford it, but that marriage must come off, or they would both die of broken hearts. Paul wrote,—Jane wrote,—plans and compromises were made and refused; the situation was becoming desperate, and finally Jane's brilliant mind suggested a marriage by wire. Great head—fine scheme. It takes a woman to circumvent unforeseen obstacles every time. Chief operators were consulted in Kansas City and St. Louis and they agreed to have the wire cut through on the evening appointed. There were to be two witnesses in each office, and I was one of the honored two in St. Louis. The day finally arrived, and promptly at seven-thirty in the evening Louisville was cut through to Wichita, and after all the contracting parties and the witnesses had assembled, the ceremony began. There was a minister at each end, and as the various queries and responses were received by the witnesses, they would read them to the contracting party present, and finally Paul said,

"With this ring, I thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow: in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen."

The ring was placed on the bride's finger, by proxy, the benediction pronounced by the Wichita minister, and the deed was done. In due time the certificate was received and signed by all the witnesses, and the matter made of record in both places.

How long did they live apart? Oh! not very long. I think it was the next night that I saw a message going through directed to Paul saying, "Will leave for Louisville to-night," and signed "Jane."

I wonder if old S. F. B. Morse ever had any idea when he was perfecting the telegraph, that it would some day be used to assist in joining together,

"Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one."

Operators are as a rule as honest as the sun, yet, "where you find wheat, there also you find chaff," and once in a while a man will be found whose proper place is the penitentiary. One of the easiest ways for an operator, so inclined to make money, is to cut wires, steal the reports of races, market quotations, or C. N. D. reports, and beat them to their destinations. Wires are watched very closely so that it is hard for an outsider to do any monkeying. Many men understand telegraphy who do not work at the business, and it is for this reason that all the instruments in the bucket shops and stock exchanges are turned so low that no one outside of the operating room can hear a sound. When it is realized that transactions are made, and fortunes won or lost in a fractional part of a minute, it will be seen how very careful the great telegraph companies must be. The big horse races every year offer great temptations.

While I was working in St. Louis, a case came under my observation that will readily illustrate the perversity of human nature. In a large office not so very far away, there was working a friend of mine, who did nothing but copy race reports and C. N. D.'s all day. On the day the great Kentucky Derby was to be run, the wire was cut through from the track in Louisville to a big pool room in this city.

Now the chief operator in this place was a scaly sort of a cuss—in fact, it was said that he had done time in the past for some skullduggery—and when the horses went to the post, he stood by the switchboard and deliberately cut the pool room wire, so the report didn't go through. He copied the report himself, knew what horse had won, and then sent a message to a henchman of his, who was an operator and had an instrument secreted in his room near the pool room. This chap went quickly into the pool room and made wagers right and left. A rank outsider, a twenty to one shot, won the race, and after the confederate had signified that he was ready, the chief sent the report through as if it had come from the track. The whole transaction didn't take over two minutes and the "bookies" were hit for about $30,000, which Mr. Chief and his side pardner divided between them.

A little while later the suspicions of the bookmakers became aroused, complaints were made, an investigation followed, and one fine day when matters were becoming pretty warm, the recalcitrant chief disappeared. His confederate confessed to the whole scheme and the jig was up. The chief was afterwards apprehended and sent up for seven years, but he held on to his boodle.

For the first month of my stay in St. Louis, my life was as uneventful as a May day, but at the end of that time a man came on the New York end of our quad that was enough to make a man drink. The men working together on a wire like this should always be harmonious, because the business is so heavy there is no time for any war of words. However, operators are like all other men, and scraps are not uncommon. Generally they take place at long range, and no one is hurt thereby. Some men have an unhappy faculty of incurring the hatred of every person over a wire, while personally they may be princes of good fellows. The man referred to above, signed "SY," and he had about as much judgment as a two year old kid. It didn't make any difference to him whether the weather was clear or muggy, no matter whether the wire was weak or strong, he'd pound along like a cyclone. Remonstrance availed nothing, and one night when he was cutting up some of his monkeyshines, I became very warm under the collar and told him in language more expressive than elegant, just what I thought of him, threatening to have our wire chief have him fired off the wire. He answered:

"Oh! you go to blazes, you big ham. You're too fresh anyway."

The epithet "ham" is about as mean a one as can be applied to an operator, and I came back at him with:

"Look here, you infernal idiot, I'll meet you some time and when I do I'm going to smash your face. Stop your monkeying and take these messages."

"Hold your horses, sonny, what's the difference between you and a jackass?" he said.

"Just nine hundred miles," I replied.

Further words were useless and in a few minutes he was relieved, but just about the time he got up he said:

"Say, 'BY,' don't forget you've got a contract to smash my face some of these days. I'll be expecting you. Ta Ta."

That was the last of him on that wire and the incident passed from my mind. I pulled up and left St. Louis shortly after that and went to work for the old Baltimore and Ohio Commercial Company, at the corner of Broadway and Canal streets, in New York. I drew a prize in the shape of the common side of the first Boston quad. Sitting right alongside of me was a great, big, handsome Irish chap named Dick Stanley. He was as fine a fellow as ever lived, and that night took me over to his house on Long Island to board. We were sitting in his room about nine-thirty, having a farewell smoke before retiring and our conversation turned to "shop talk." We talked of the old timers we had both known, told reminiscences, spun yarns, and all at once Dick said:

"Say, Bates, did you ever work in 'A' office in St. Louis?"

"Oh! yes," I replied, "I put in three months there under 'Old Top.' In fact, I came from there to New York."

"That so?" he answered. "I used to work on the polar side of the No. 2 quad, from this end, over in the Western Union office on Broadway and Dey street. What did you sign there?"

"BY," I answered. I thought he looked queer, but we continued our talk, and finally I told him of my wordy war with a man in New York, who signed "SY," and remarked that I was going over to 195 Broadway, and size him up some day. He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, got up from his chair, and, stretching his six feet two of anatomy to its full length said:

"Well, old chap, I'm fagged. I'm going to bed. You'd better get a good sleep and be thoroughly rested in the morning, because you'll need all your strength. I'm the man that signed 'SY' in the New York office, and I'm ready to take that licking."

Did I lick him? Not much, I couldn't have licked one side of him, and we were the best of chums during my stay in the city.