Later in the day Fred Moxon interviewed his morning visitor and made inquiries about the Cassidy boys, James P. and John S., and many other of his boyhood friends still on Earth.
“We will have a Washington day very soon and we will invite all of our old friends from near-by and I hope that each city will get up a similar demonstration, as these meetings are all for the good, and as the records of the same will be printed in Telegraph and Telephone Age, it will be a great comfort for our surviving friends to read of the good times we are having up here.”
“When I was in the Washington office,” said Ham. Young, “it gave me great pleasure to assist our boys through their difficulties, and make their lives less burdensome, and it now makes my heart feel good to see those who have passed from Earth to Mars enjoying their well-earned rest. The Washington boys all partake of the nature of the ‘Father of his Country,’ whom we have all met in this ethereal mansion on various occasions, and are proud to be identified with so distinguished a gentleman, though we are all on a level here.”
P. V. DeGraw Speaks
“Washington is very different now to what it was years ago when I used to rattle off the Associated Press news,” chimed in Vory DeGraw. “We had no multiplexes and page printers those days and each man was an artist at the key. I have nothing but the happiest recollections of my old telegraph friends in Washington, several of whom have recently joined the throng in this abode of rest and happiness.”
Ernest Emery’s eyes sparkled with greater brilliancy than ever as he heard the names of his old-time Washington friends mentioned. “I hope that ‘Washington Day’ will be an event worthy of the great city and its associations,” he said. “Being the capital of the nation the best men in the telegraph profession exist there, and those now here will enter into the festivities of the occasion with the greatest of pleasure, when their lives in that city are recalled and rehearsed. All will have something pleasant to relate.”
CHAPTER XVI.
THE MAGNETIC AND MORSE CLUBS
ENTERTAIN
MUCH activity was being displayed by the New York members of the Pleiades Club on the fields surrounding the Telegraphers’ Tabernacle, and the air reverberated with the sound of the hammer.
This activity was being manifest in the construction of old-fashioned balloons, shambling dirigibles and the more graceful aeroplane.