I had often visited the shop of Thomas Hall, at 19 Bromfield Street, and looked in the window.  I went in from time to time, not to make large purchases, but mostly to make inquiries and to buy some blue vitriol, wire, or something of the kind.  It was a store where apparatus was sold for experimentation in schools, and on Saturdays a number of Harvard and Institute of Technology professors could be found there.  It was quite a rendezvous for the scientific men in those days, just the same as the Old Corner Bookstore at the corner of School and Washington Streets was a place where the literary men used to congregate.  Don’t think that I was an associate of these great scientists, but I was very much attracted to the atmosphere of that store.  I wanted to get in and handle the apparatus.

Finally it occurred to me that I would like to get into the business, somehow.  But I did not have the courage to go in and ask them for a job.  One day I was going by and saw a sign hanging out, “Boy Wanted.”  I was about nineteen, and really thought I was something of a scientist, not exactly a boy.  I was a boy, however.  I walked by on one side of the street and then on the other, looking in, and finally the idea possessed me to go in and strike for that job.  So I took down the sign, which was outside the window, put it under my arm, and went in and persuaded Tom Hall that I was the boy he wanted.

He said, “When can you begin?” I said, “Now.”  There was no talk of wages or duties.  He said, “Take this package around to Earle & Prew’s express and hurry back, as I have another errand for you to do.”  So I had to take a great, heavy box around to the express-office and get a receipt for it.  I found, when Saturday night came around, that I had been engaged at the rate of fifty cents a day.  I would have been glad to work for nothing.

Well, I did not get near that apparatus in a hurry, not until the time came for fixing up the window.  My first talk in regard to it had no reference to services in a scientific capacity on my part.  I had rather hoped that the boss would come around and consult with, me as to how to adjust the apparatus.  But that was not it.  He said:  “John, clean out that window.  Everything is full of dust, and be careful and don’t break anything!” So I cleaned it out.  I swept out the place, cleaned about there, did errands, mixed battery solutions, and got a great deal of experience there in one way or another.  I did whatever there was to do and got a good deal of fun out of it, while becoming acquainted with the state of the art of that day.  I got to know intimately all the different sorts of philosophical apparatus there were, and how to mix the various battery solutions.  In fact, I became really quite experienced for those times in such matters.

It was not long before young Carty lost his job.  Being a regular boy, he had been guilty of too much skylarking.  This experience steadied him, and he forthwith sought a new job.  He had met some of the employees of the telephone company and was naturally interested in their work.  At that time “hello boys” held sway in the crude telephone exchanges, the “hello girl” having not yet appeared.  So John Carty at the age of nineteen went to work in the Boston telephone exchange.