LETTER XIII.
THE FRIEND-MILE AS A UNIT OF MEASURE.
June 12, 1904.
My Dear Boy:—Your chief dispatcher blew through here the other day on his vacation and dropped in to pay his respects. He rather apologized for so doing, as he seemed to think it might be considered an intrusion to call on a stranger. I took it as a compliment to myself and as a mark of his loyalty to you. It is so easy for us old fellows to forget that we were once junior officials ourselves that I rather like to keep in touch with those who are to come after and maintain the time-honored standards of the profession. I never like to say very much about my desire to acquire information from everyone I meet, for experience has made me a little leery of the man who whistles too long for that station. He is apt to toot his own horn so much that he doesn’t hear the other fellow’s signals. So I tried not to do all the talking, and did not tell my guest of the great im-
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