dvocated that we should unite with
Mr. Pullman, as I had united with him before in the Union Pacific
contract. As the personal relations between Mr. Pullman and some
members of the Eastern company were unsatisfactory, it was deemed best
that I should undertake the negotiations, being upon friendly footing
with both parties. We soon agreed that the Pullman Company should
absorb our company, the Central Transportation Company, and by this
means Mr. Pullman, instead of being confined to the West, obtained
control of the rights on the great Pennsylvania trunk line to the
Atlantic seaboard. This placed his company beyond all possible rivals.
Mr. Pullman was one of the ablest men of affairs I have ever known,
and I am indebted to him, among other things, for one story which
carried a moral.

Mr. Pullman, like every other man, had his difficulties and
disappointments, and did not hit the mark every time. No one does.
Indeed, I do not know any one but himself who could have surmounted
the difficulties surrounding the business of running sleeping-cars in
a satisfactory manner and still retained some rights which the railway
companies were bound to respect. Railway companies should, of course,
operate their own sleeping-cars. On one occasion when we were
comparing notes he told me that he always found comfort in this story.
An old man in a Western county having suffered from all the ills that
flesh is heir to, and a great many more than it usually encounters,
and being commiserated by his neighbors, replied:

"Yes, my friends, all that you say is true. I have had a long, long
life full of troubles, but there is one curious fact about them--nine
tenths of them never happened."

True indeed; most of the troubles of humanity are imaginary and should
be laughed out of court. It is folly to cross a bridge until you come
to it, or to bid the Devil good-morning until you meet him--perfect
folly. All is well until the stroke falls, and even then nine times
out of ten it is not so bad as anticipated. A wise man is the
confirmed optimist.

Success in these various negotiations had brought me into some notice
in New York, and my next large operation was in connection with the
Union Pacific Railway in 1871. One of its directors came to me saying
that they must raise in some way a sum of six hundred thousand dollars
(equal to many millions to-day) to carry them through a crisis; and
some friends who knew me and were on the executive comm