"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."