Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1886 — A Millionaire and a Bogus Lord. [ARTICLE]

A Millionaire and a Bogus Lord.

Mr. Carnegie, the Pittsburg millionaire, is best known in England as the director-general of the Carnegie halfpenny press. Here is a story from one of the papers which shows the great little man in another capacity: A few years ago, in 1877, Mr. Carnegie was on his way home from one of his flying visits across the big pond to “his ain countrie,” Dumferinline, where he was born, and which place he has endowed with a $200,000 library, wffien he met in London or on the steamer westward a versatile and accomplished young man who played the “bunko” game on him in a way that was peculiar and bland, and has a history in the present relation. The young man, who was accompanied by 1: ire, a bright and not unhandsome v> . , u. in a quiet and semi-confidential w.u id Mr. Carnegie gradually understand he was “Lord Ogilvy, you know.” “Eldest son of the Earl of Anlie.” “Sent abroad, you know, having earned the displeasure of the old Earl for marrying without his consent.” The ironmaster, though an expert on all the Bessemer and basic Erocesses and a decillionaire through is Scotch shrewdness in building the Edgar Thomson, was not a very good judge of Lords, and took the bait. Young Lord Ogilvy was invited to spend a few weeks at Mr. Carnegie’s summer home on the summit of the Appalachians, at Cresson. There, although urging on his host his desire to be “incognito, you know, until the old Earl relented a little,” Mr. Carnegie introduced him to the proud Pittsburgers, to whom it was gradually imparted that th&re was a real live Lord among them. No high teas were too elaborate nor whist-parties too recherche after this for the young couple, one of whom at least could trace his blood back to the reign of the King from whom Jamestown was named, while the oldest Pittsburger could not carry his pedigree beyond the time when Forbes flew the red cross above the fleur-de-lis at the forks of the Ohio. Lord Ogilvy and his spouse visited Pittsburg, and the former was given the entree of the Du Quesne Club, while the latter enjoyed the hospitalities of the Carnegie mansion in the East End. The bogus Lord’s exchequer ran low; the ironmaster “cashed a draft for a few hundred jiounds, you know, until letters from the Earl with remittances come.” A number of Mr. Carnegie’s rich iron acquaintances also cashed drafts for the young lord. It was the old story. An industrious chevalier and a quickwitted and rather pretty mate striking golden notes on the harp of credulity; for after a little they disappeared in the direction of the star of empire, and Mr. Carnegie was out several thousand dollars —as he lifted his noble friend’s paper in the hands of those to whom he had introduced him—and the affair, although attempted to be quietly hushed up, was long a standing joke in the smoky city.