At midnight we were on our way to Philadelphia in a draughty coach. It was an up-to-date train, equipped with the Miller platform, coupler, and buffer, which gave it a continuous floor and cane-woven seats, and the trainmen carried the new movable globe lantern. The rails were joined so as to soften the tread of the wheels, but still the bang, bang of them at the rails' ends filled the train with its clamor. We had brought a couple of shawls with us, and we used them for pillows, and lay half reclining on the hard seats beneath our overcoats. We slept a little in spite of the roaring wheels and rattling windows and the shriek of the trainmen at all the stops and the snore-streaked, chilly silences that followed, and rose stiff and sore at daybreak to wait for the west-bound train. It was hard travel, but far easier than that of the stage-coach, of which my mother had told me, and in those days it seemed like the height of luxury. All next day and another night we travelled, and Mr. Carnegie met us at the Pittsburg depot at eight o'clock. He was a man of about thirty years, with a full brown beard and keen, gray eyes and an alert and courteous manner. He showed us through the Union Iron Mills, where they had begun to make and handle castings heavy as a house by steam-power, and as easily as a lady swings her fan. There weapons for the war with distance were being made. Bones of the mountains were melting in great heat and running into rails and beams to bridge the pathless fields and the river chasms. “I want to talk with you about the rail problem,” said McCarthy. “It's nearly solved,” said Mr. Carnegie. “The rail of the future will be made of Bessemer steel. It can stand heat and cold and heavy pressure. We'll be making them here as soon as possible. I think within a year or two this company will be able to fill your orders.” It was a warm day in April, and Mr. McCarthy and I had removed our coats. The city was celebrating the surrender at Appomattox, and, driving toward the depot, we came into full streets and met a procession led by cavalry. “I think we had better get out and take the sidewalk,” said Mr. Carnegie. We left the carriage, and suddenly the gentleman said, “I must go back after my coat.” “Why?” the other asked. “It wouldn't be polite for me to walk in the streets without a coat.” “Here, take mine,” said Mr. Carnegie, as he removed his own, which McCarthy declined. It was an odd exhibit from the old and new schools of gentlemanhood, of the formality of Chesterfield--of which Mr. McCarthy had long been a student--and the simplicity of Abraham Lincoln. “Thank God, the war is over,” said Mr. Carnegie, as he went on, “but the military spirit is everywhere, and it will die slowly. I feel it more and more in business. Do you know that business is beginning to be a kind of warfare in which victory is the chief end, and all is well that leads to it? War is a crime. It sanctions murder and teaches dishonesty.”