ccasion he
came to my brother to complain that a bargain which he had made for
the supply of iron for a year had not been copied correctly. The
prices were "net," and nothing had been said about "net" when the
bargain was made. He wanted to know just what that word "net" meant.

"Well, Colonel," said my brother, "it means that nothing more is to be
added."

"All right, Thomas," said the Colonel, entirely satisfied.

There is much in the way one puts things. "Nothing to be deducted"
might have caused a dispute.

[Illustration: THOMAS MORRISON CARNEGIE]

He was made furious one day by Bradstreet's volume which gives the
standing of business concerns. Never having seen such a book before,
he was naturally anxious to see what rating his concern had. When he
read that the Keystone Bridge Works were "BC," which meant "Bad
Credit," it was with difficulty he was restrained from going to see
our lawyers to have a suit brought against the publishers. Tom,
however, explained to him that the Keystone Bridge Works were in bad
credit because they never borrowed anything, and he was pacified. No
debt was one of the Colonel's hobbies. Once, when I was leaving for
Europe, when many firms were hard up and some failing around us, he
said to me:

"The sheriff can't get us when you are gone if I don't sign any notes,
can he?"

"No," I said, "he can't."

"All right, we'll be here when you come back."

Talking of the Colonel reminds me of another unusual character with
whom we were brought in contact in these bridge-building days. This
was Captain Eads, of St. Louis,[26] an original genius _minus_
scientific knowledge to guide his erratic ideas of things mechanical.
He was seemingly one of those who wished to have everything done upon
his own original plans. That a thing had been done in one way before
was sufficient to cause its rejection. When his plans for the St.
Louis Bridge were presented to us, I handed them to the one man in the
United States who knew the subject best--our Mr. Linville. He came to
me in great concern, saying:

"The bridge if built upon these plans will not stand up; it will not
carry its own weight."

"Well," I said, "Captain Eads will come to see you and in talking over
matters explain this to him gently, get it into proper shape, lead him
into the straight path and say nothing about it to others."

[Footnote 26: Captain James B. Eads, afterward famous for his jetty
system in the Mississippi River.]