,' is yet."

Clarke quietly gave him "O. K." and then turned to me with,

"I guess you are not used to this kind of work. Better go back to
railroading, and learn something about commercial work before tackling a
job like this again. Come back in six months and I'll give you another
trial." I sneaked out of the office, followed by the broad smiles of
every man in the place, and thus ended the first lesson.

I took Clarke's advice and went back to work on a narrow-gauge road
running northwards out of Houston, through the most God-forsaken country
on the footstool. Sluggish bayous, foul rank growth of vegetation,
alligators as long as a rail, that would come out and stop trains by
being on the track, and air so malarious in quality that it was only a
question of time until one had the fever. I stuck it out for two months
and then succumbed to the inevitable and went to the hospital where I
lay for three weeks. After I had fully recovered they put me to work in
the Houston General Office, and some eight months after reaching there I
received a message from my old friend Clarke, saying, "if I had improved
any in my commercial work he would give me a job at seventy dollars per
month." I hadn't improved much, but as this world is two-thirds bluff, I
made mine, and said I'd come, trusting to luck to be able to hold on.

I reached there one pleasant afternoon and the next morning went to
work. I must have had my rabbit's foot with me, because I was assigned
to a "Way Wire." I think if he had told me to tackle a "Quad," again, I
should have fainted. A "Way Wire," is one that runs along a railroad,
having offices cut in in all the small towns. There wasn't a town on the
whole string that had more than ten or fifteen messages a day, but the
aggregate of all the offices made up a very good day's work. Then again
I didn't have to handle any of those confounded "C. N. D." messages.
Clarke watched me closely and at the end of the first day he said my
work showed a marked improvement. You may rest assured I watched my P's
and Q's, and it wasn't long before I had the hang of the system and
could take my trick on a "Quad" with the best of them. Rheostats,
wheatstone bridges, polarized relays, pole changers, and ground switches
became as familiar to me as the old relay key and sounder had been.

Some of the rarest gems of the profession worked in "G" office at this
time--George Clarke, "Cy" Clamphitt, "Jack" Graham, Will Church,
John