Colleagues, small and great, recount your generosity and regret departure, while those distressed mortals who knew your kindly assistance pour full the measure of credit.
If the public, and this galaxy of happy-go-lucky railroaders who foregather have imperfectly recited how they will miss you at quilting bees, it is not because they are hostile, but they lack Chantecler’s brazen crow.
As a scout of broad gauge calibre, tracking business to its lair, reconnoitering Indian bands or negotiating with sinner, saint and suffragette, you have been all things to all men, and along the tortuous trail they do say your sang froid, ingratiating manner and elegance of diction ranked not as common garden varieties.
The King’s currency, bestowed in embarrassing quantities, is apt to jolt one’s system into repudiating labor’s noble avocations; hence the modest proportions of this accompanying bag of francs, which your confreres—elderly, youthful, handsome—unhesitatingly tender you with earnest protests of regard.
You are now at the Hemisphere’s portal, where you can, without obstruction, behold the Fates unfolding your future; where old Sol, with blushing countenance, sinks in the “Pacific” without his bathing suit, and all supplicate you not to trip o’er the guy ropes when gazing at comets with the astronomers.
We trust the doors to preferment, now open, will disclose to you and yours the uneven highway of life growing smoother and wider, and may the blessing of good health crown all.
The Committee:—R. S. Lewis, L.V.R.; A. J. Taylor, C. M. & St.P.R.; J. J. Rose, C.P.R.; J. A. Richardson, Wabash Railroad; B. H. Bennett, C. & N.W.R.; C. E. Horning, G.T.R.
W. J. MOFFATT
JOHN J. ROSE