Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1875-05-15
TOM SCOTT.
Some Readable Gossip About the
Great Railroad AutOcrat-''An Ice
berg Covered With Tropical Yer
dure."

Some Readable Gossip About the
Great Railroad AutOcrat-"An Ice
berg Covered With Tropical YER
dure.'
Philadelphia Correspondence Of the st. Louis
Republican.
There may be bonhomme in Tom
Scott. There is. 1t shines out of his
Madeira colored face, turks about the
curved corners of his mouth and rings
in his hearty laugh. His thick, white
hair, tending TO curl, falls down over
his full, round forehead in schOolboy
neglige, and his white side whiskers
bristle out with a frolicsome reckless
ness of comb and brush. At first
glance you see very much of the genial
elderly gentleman and very little
of the railway autocrat IN Tom
Scott. But catch his eye and the
whole man is transformed. l think
Sir Isaac Newton must have looked
with such an eye at the apple whose
fall to the ground solved the problem
Of sidereal machinery. ScOtt's eye is
made up Of two shades Of steel blue.
The ball is dark blue and the white
light blue, while the whole has the eff
feet Of polished metal. You cannot see
the depth of a hairs breadth in Tom
SCOTS eyes. They gaze at you wide
open, and the face in which they are
framed betrays expression enough. but
the eyes give no sign Of heart or soul
within. Like a polished mirror you
see yourself reflected in them, but from
their hard, metallic surface your gaze
is thrown back at you, powerless TO
penetrate; YOU see nothing through
them.
When you meet Scott he stands
very straight, throws his head back
and his arms as stify forward, grasps
your hand suddenly, gives 1t a quick
pressure, says GladtOseeyOu," all in
one word, and then drops your hand as
though he had squeezed 1t dry and had
no more use for it. You proceed to
talk with him. and your impression Is
that his words are selling IN Wall
street at par and worth about 500 a
syllable. Tom Scott can say more IN a
given amount Of talk than any man I
ever saw or heard. l should suppose
that he could begin, negotiate and con-
clude a bargain for the lease Of a rall-
road or the purchase Of a Legislature
in the same number Of words that the
average society young man would en-
ploy IN recognizinga lady acquaintance
upon the street. Every sentence he
utters is an epigram IN all except wit,
and what it lacks in wit it makes up IN
force and pith. When he gets to the
end Of a sentence his lips close instant
", barely giving the last word time to
escape, and be enfOTCes what he has
Just said with an interval Of mOmentOus
silence-as a marksman waits to see
where his last ball struck before ne
shoots again. If you have anything
to say, Scott listens intently, looking
you full in the eye. If you interest
him, or if you bore him, his reception
Of your observations is equally placid.
There is no outward sign of inner
feeling beyond a slight raising Of
the eyebrows when you entertain,
or a slight lowering of them
when you bore him. If he gives you
twenty minutes Of his time when he is
at leisure you are made to feel that you
have been The recipient Of a social IA
vOr. If he devOtes five minutes to you
when he is busy, you are impressed
more deeply than you would be If an
other man had loaned You a thousand
dollars without security. In short, the
leading fact Tom ScOtt's manner i'm
presses you with, is that time is money,
and that his time in particular is a
gIeat deal Of lucre. Imagine an ice
berg covered with tropical verdure and
you have some idea of the nature which
the handsome exterior Of the Pennsyl-
vania railroad king envelopes.