at Greensburg was the first public
house in which I had ever taken a meal. I thought the food wonderfully
fine.

[Illustration: HENRY PHIPPS]

This was in 1852. Deep cuts and embankments near Greensburg were then
being made for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and I often walked out in
the early morning to see the work going forward, little dreaming that
I was so soon to enter the service of that great corporation. This
was the first responsible position I had occupied in the telegraph
service, and I was so anxious to be at hand in case I should be
needed, that one night very late I sat in the office during a storm,
not wishing to cut off the connection. I ventured too near the key and
for my boldness was knocked off my stool. A flash of lightning very
nearly ended my career. After that I was noted in the office for
caution during lightning storms. I succeeded in doing the small
business at Greensburg to the satisfaction of my superiors, and
returned to Pittsburgh surrounded with something like a halo, so far
as the other boys were concerned. Promotion soon came. A new operator
was wanted and Mr. Brooks telegraphed to my afterward dear friend
James D. Reid, then general superintendent of the line, another fine
specimen of the Scotsman, and took upon himself to recommend me as an
assistant operator. The telegram from Louisville in reply stated that
Mr. Reid highly approved of promoting "Andy," provided Mr. Brooks
considered him competent. The result was that I began as a telegraph
operator at the tremendous salary of twenty-five dollars per month,
which I thought a fortune. To Mr. Brooks and Mr. Reid I owe my
promotion from the messenger's station to the operating-room.[18] I
was then in my seventeenth year and had served my apprenticeship. I
was now performing a man's part, no longer a boy's--earning a dollar
every working day.

[Footnote 18: "I liked the boy's looks, and it was very easy to see
that though he was little he was full of spirit. He had not been with
me a month when he began to ask whether I would teach him to
telegraph. I began to instruct him and found him an apt pupil." (James
D. Reid, _The Telegraph in America_, New York, 1879.)

Reid was born near Dunfermline and forty years afterwards Mr. Carnegie
was able to secure for him the appointment of United States Consul at
Dunfermline.]

The operating-room of a telegraph office is an excellent school for a
young man. He there has to do with pencil and pape