He touched especially upon his quarrels with the Pennsylvania Railroad people, with Mr.Thomson and Mr.Scott, the president and vice-president, whom he knew to be my special friends.
This led me to say that I had passed through Philadelphia on my way to see him and had been asked by Mr.Scott where I was going.
"I told him that I was going to visit you to obtain the contracts for your great bridges over the Ohio River.

Mr.Scott said it was not often that I went on a fool's errand, but that I was certainly on one now; that Mr.Garrett would never think for a moment of giving me his contracts, for every one knew that I was, as a former employee, always friendly to the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Well, I said, we shall build Mr.Garrett's bridges." Mr.Garrett promptly replied that when the interests of his company were at stake it was the best always that won.

His engineers had reported that our plans were the best and that Scott and Thomson would see that he had only one rule--the interests of his company.

Although he very well knew that I was a Pennsylvania Railroad man, yet he felt it his duty to award us the work.
The negotiation was still unsatisfactory to me, because we were to get all the difficult part of the work--the great spans of which the risk was then considerable--while Mr.Garrett was to build all the small and profitable spans at his own shops upon our plans and patents.