It took Addicks but a few days to trade, for at each sitting the staging was more enticing and the call from his associates in London more insistent. Minor difficulties were magnificently waved away. A number of scions of Boston's best families had good paying positions in the different companies; what would Mr. Addicks do with them?
"Simple, simple," he replied; "double the time of contract and the salary; no favor to them or you; good men are very hard to get, you know."
One episode that occurred about this time was allowed to get into print when the stocks and bonds were being floated, by way of showing what a tremendous fellow Addicks was. In a hired hack he had driven up to the club from State Street. A snow-storm was raging. After Addicks had been in the club a few moments word was brought in to him that the driver had found his sable overcoat inside the carriage. Addicks stepped into the vestibule to speak to the driver, and next day it was all over the club-house and through the "Street" that the prodigal Philadelphian, overcome at the thought of the unfortunate driver in his scanty clothing exposed to the cruel storm, had said: "My good man, take that coat as a present from me."
For the truth of the story I do not vouch, nor for that other which explains that the door-boy who spread this tale of generosity said afterward, when discharged, that Addicks himself had told him what he had done, and at the same time had given him a five-dollar bill. He would have sworn the moment before that he heard Addicks tell the driver to take the coat to his apartments.
Addicks got what he came to Boston for—the Boston, Roxbury, and South Boston Gas companies. He did what he said he would, built a new