stown--Gresham Terrace there is called after him. He
organised a successful opposition to the Dublin and Kingstown Railway
being allowed--though authorised by Parliament--to go into Kingstown, and
its terminus was for some years Salthill Station (Monkstown) a mile away.
Mr. Gresham's action was so highly appreciated--incredible as it now
appears--that he was presented with a testimonial and a piece of plate
for his "_spirited and patriotic action_." I have adorned this book with
a photograph of the salver which, with the inscription it bears, will I
think, in these days, be not uninteresting.

The year 1911 was darkened for me by the shadow of death. During its
course I lost my wife, who succumbed to an illness which had lasted for
several years, an illness accompanied with much pain and suffering borne
with great courage and endurance.

CHAPTER XXX.
FROM MANAGER TO DIRECTOR

I had long cherished the hope that when, in the course of time, I sought
to retire from the active duties of railway management, I might, perhaps,
be promoted to a seat on the Board of the Company. Presumptuous though
the thought may have been, I had the justification that it was not
discouraged by some of my Directors, to whom, in the intimacy of after
dinner talk, I sometimes broached the subject. But I little imagined the
change would come as soon as it did. I had fancied that my managerial
activities would continue until I attained the usual age for
retirement--three score years and five. On this I had more or less
reckoned, but

"_There's a divinity that shapes our ends_
_Rough hew them how we will_,"

and it came to pass that at sixty-one I exchanged my busy life for a life
of comparative ease. And this is how it came about. A vacancy on the
Board of Directors unexpectedly occurred in October, 1912, while I was in
Paris on my way home from a holiday in Switzerland and Italy. I there
received a letter informing me that the Board would offer me the vacant
seat if it really was my wish to retire so soon. Not a moment did I
hesitate. Such an opportunity might never come again; so like a prudent
man, I "grasped the skirts of happy chance," and the 5th day of November,
1912, saw me duly installed as a Director of the Company which I had
served as Manager for close upon twenty-two years. It was an early age,
perhaps, to retire from that active life to which I had been accustomed,
but as Doctor Johnson says, "No man i