CHAPTER XV.

DEBUT OF HENRY WARD BEECHER ON PLANET MARS

It was a bright, intelligent lot of men and women who called upon Secretary Fred B. Moxon, on the planet Mars, quite recently.

The spokesman, Ernest W. Emery, who had in his possession half a year’s files of Telegraph and Telephone Age, addressed Mr. Moxon.

_Ernest Emery Heard From_

“We are no kickers,” he began, “but Charles A. Tinker just gave us all these late copies of the Age, and we notice that among the records of the club, of which you are secretary, you never vouchsafe a kind word for any of the eastern boys or girls. There is nothing right about this, and you must admit it. Our friends down there on the Earth are as interested to hear from us, as are the survivors in the Windy City or the dwellers on the Nebraska prairies.”

“Right you are,” replied Mr. Moxon, “and I do not think anyone is to be blamed for it. Washington is the city where I was born and bred and it fills a deep place in my heart, but the club is still young and my correspondent is covering the ground systematically, and you will all be heard from. Indeed, you will all have a chapter in the very near future, and if you will give me a little ‘dope’ on some of our present members who are bashful, I will get you all in excepting your photographs, very soon.”

Peter DeGraw, Ham. Young and Ernest Emery then locked arms for a walk down the Rue for the purpose of interviewing other old members of the guard from Washington and procuring additional data.

“Hello, there’s Bob Bender, newly arrived and looking as fresh as a clam. He was an attendant at the recent reunion of the Old Timers’ Association in New York and ought to be full of good information. Let’s stop him and get the news.”

Bob Bender was delighted to greet his old friends again and listened with much interest to the experiences of his companions and, in turn, gave them the latest news from Washington.

“Yes, George C. Maynard is there, looking as noble as ever, and Judd Thompson, C. F. Thompson, H. McKeldin, John H. Miller and Dennis Brown are still in the harness. Washington has gone dry.”

Mr. Bender went on to say that he had been over to New York recently, but as there was going to be a New York chapter in the Pleiades Club very soon, and also a Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore number, he did not care to spoil a good story by anticipating the future.

Mr. Bender locked arms with his comrades in their interesting walk, and as they passed Aeolianville they stopped to shake hands with William T. Loper, who was being entertained by that most wonderful orator, Henry Ward Beecher.

The quartette, composed of Messrs. Emery, DeGraw, Bender and Young, stopped for a minute. They had overheard some “shop talk.”

“Yes,” Loper was saying, “you are the only fellow who ever rushed me. Don’t you remember your sermon on ‘Agreeing with your enemy,’ and none of us could keep up with you? I came nearly throwing up my job on that very occasion.” It was stated for the benefit of those who were not acquainted with the facts that each Sunday Mr. Loper went from Washington to New York to copy Henry Ward Beecher’s sermon. He then went to the telegraph office at 195 Broadway, New York, and the sermons were telegraphed from his note book to the principal papers in the United States by Mr. Loper himself, who was one of the finest operators as well as stenographers of his day, and one of the few shorthand men who could copy Henry Ward Beecher.

“Hi, hi, 73,” came from the merry four and Loper smiled all over, while Beecher asked what was meant by “73.”

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.”