CHAPTER XI

WITNESSING A MARRIAGE BY WIRE--BEATING A POOL ROOM--SPARRING AT LONG RANGE

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 G.o.d 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 circ.u.mvent 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 a.s.sembled, 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 a.s.sist 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 jacka.s.s?" 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 pa.s.sed 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 Ca.n.a.l 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 f.a.gged. 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "He looked at me ... then catching me by the collar...."]

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.

CHAPTER XII

HOW A SMART OPERATOR WAS SQUELCHED--THE GALVESTON FLOOD

A little while after this "Stub" Hanigan, another operator, invited d.i.c.k and me to go down to a chop house with him for lunch, and we accepted. I say chop house when in reality it was one of those numerous little hotels that abound all over New York where one can get a good meal for very little money. Hanigan was a rattling good operator, but he was very young and had a tendency to be too fresh on occasion.

He ordered us a fine lunch and while we were sitting there discussing the good things, a big awkward looking chap came into the dining-room.

He was accompanied by a sweet, pretty looking little woman. She was a regular beauty, and it needed but a glance to see that they were bride and groom, and from the country. They had all the ear marks so apparent in every bride and groom. They hesitated on the threshold a moment, and the groom said very audibly:

"Dearest, this is the finest dining-room in the world," and "Dearest"

beamed on her liege lord in a manner that was very trustful and sweet.

Hanigan, idiot that he was, laughed outright. d.i.c.k and I both gave him a savage kick under the table, but it didn't have any effect.

The head waiter brought the couple over and sat them down at our table, and, say--that woman was as pretty as any that ever came down the pike.

Towards the end of the meal, Hanigan took his knife and fork and began to telegraph to Stanley and me, making all sorts of fun about the country pair. Now that is a pretty dangerous business, because there is no telling who may be an operator. d.i.c.k growled at him savagely under his breath and told him to shut up. Nay! Nay! Mr. Hanigan wouldn't shut up worth a cent. Finally he made some scurrilous remark, and then another knife and fork came into play. Mr. Bridegroom was doing the talking now, and this is what he said to Hanigan:

"I happen to be an operator myself, and have heard and understood every word you said. As long as you confined yourself to innocent remarks about country brides and grooms, I haven't minded it a bit. In fact, I have rather enjoyed it. But now you've gone too far, and in about five seconds I'm going to have the pleasure of smashing your face."

Then, before we had time to do a thing, biff; and Hanigan got it squarely on the jaw. We hustled him out of there as soon as we could, but Mr. Bridegroom had all his Irish up and followed him out. Eventually we succeeded in calming him down; "Stub" made a most abject apology, and I don't believe he ever used his knife and fork for any such a purpose again.

The gawky chap was Mr. Dave Harrison, one of the finest operators in the profession.

Just about this time fall weather was coming on, and there was a suggestion of an approaching winter in the chill morning air, and receiving a letter from my old friend Clarke in Galveston, telling me there was a good job waiting for me if I could come at once, I pulled up stakes in New York, and sailed away on the Mallory Line ship "Comal,"

for my old stamping ground. I reached there the next week and was put to work on the New York Duplex, which, by the way, was the longest string in the United States. Mrs. Swanson had re-opened her boarding house on Avenue M, everything looked lovely and I antic.i.p.ated a very pleasant winter. Up to September 18th, everything was as quiet and calm as a May day. The weather had been beautiful, the surf bathing and concerts in front of the Beach Hotel fine, and nothing was left to wish for.

I quit working on Thursday, September 18th, at five P. M., and went out to the beach and had a plunge. The sky was clear, but there was a good stiff breeze blowing, and it was increasing all the time. The tide was flowing in, and the dashing of the waves and roar of the surf made a picture long to be remembered. After my swim I went home, and when supper was finished three of us again went out to the beach. The wind had increased to a perfect gale, and already the water was over the car tracks. The PaG.o.da and Surf bath houses were surrounded, while numerous small shacks along the sh.o.r.e had been washed away. Inch by inch, foot by foot, the water advanced until it began to look serious, but no one dreamed of the flood that was to follow.

We went home at eight-thirty, and at ten I dropped into the realms of the sand man, lulled to sleep by the roar of the distant surf, and the whistling and moaning of the high wind.

Jimmie Swanson was again my roommate and about five o'clock he woke me up and said:

"Mr. Bates, if this wind keeps up the whole island will be under water in a very few hours more."

"Nonsense, Jimmie," I replied, "there is no danger of that," and I turned over to have another snooze, when I heard a peculiar _swash_, _swash_, _swash_, against the side of the house.