In like manner I intend to tell my story, not as one posturing before the public, but as in the midst of my own people and friends, tried and true, to whom I can speak with the utmost freedom, feeling that even trifling incidents may not be wholly destitute of interest for them.
To begin, then, I was born in Dunfermline, in the attic of the small one-story house, corner of Moodie Street and Priory Lane, on the 25th of November, 1835, and, as the saying is, "of poor but honest parents, of good kith and kin." Dunfermline had long been noted as the center of the damask trade in Scotland.[1] My father, William Carnegie, was a damask weaver, the son of Andrew Carnegie after whom I was named.
[Footnote 1: The Eighteenth-Century Carnegies lived at the picturesque hamlet of Patiemuir, two miles south of Dunfermline.

The growing importance of the linen industry in Dunfermline finally led the Carnegies to move to that town.] My Grandfather Carnegie was well known throughout the district for his wit and humor, his genial nature and irrepressible spirits.

He was head of the lively ones of his day, and known far and near as the chief of their joyous club--"Patiemuir College." Upon my return to Dunfermline, after an absence of fourteen years, I remember being approached by an old man who had been told that I was the grandson of the "Professor," my grandfather's title among his cronies.

He was the very picture of palsied eld; "His nose and chin they threatened ither." As he tottered across the room toward me and laid his trembling hand upon my head he said: "And ye are the grandson o' Andra Carnegie! Eh, mon, I ha'e seen the day when your grandfaither and I could ha'e hallooed ony reasonable man oot o' his jidgment." [Illustration: ANDREW CARNEGIE'S BIRTHPLACE] Several other old people of Dunfermline told me stories of my grandfather.

Here is one of them: One Hogmanay night[2] an old wifey, quite a character in the village, being surprised by a disguised face suddenly thrust in at the window, looked up and after a moment's pause exclaimed, "Oh, it's jist that daft callant Andra Carnegie." She was right; my grandfather at seventy-five was out frightening his old lady friends, disguised like other frolicking youngsters.
[Footnote 2: The 31st of December.] I think my optimistic nature, my ability to shed trouble and to laugh through life, making "all my ducks swans," as friends say I do, must have been inherited from this delightful old masquerading grandfather whose name I am proud to bear.[3] A sunny disposition is worth more than fortune.