In 1883, after my return from Paris, I grew restless again, with a longing for more responsibility and a larger and freer life; with, perhaps, an admixture of something not so ennobling—­the desire for a bigger income.  Never was I indifferent to the comforts that money can bring, though never, I must confess, was I gifted with the capacity for money making or money saving.  The pleasures of life (the rational pleasures I hope) had always an attraction for me.  I could never forego them, or forego the expense they involved, for the sake of future distant advantages.  What weighed with me, too, was the fact that I was undoubtedly overworked and my health was suffering.  It was not that my railway duties proper were oppressive, but the duties as Secretary of the Railway Benevolent Institution in Scotland added considerably to my office hours, and at home I often worked far into the night writing for the several papers to which I contributed.  Too much work and too little play was making Jack a very dull boy.  I envied those officers, such as John Mathieson, whose duties took them often out of doors, and gave them the control and management of men.

My chief was as kind and considerate as ever, and I confided to him the thoughts that disturbed me.  Warm-heartedly he sympathised with my feelings.  He himself had gone, he said, through the same experience some twenty years before.  The prospect of promotion at St. Enoch, he agreed, seemed remote; the principal officers, except the engineer, were young or middle-aged; and he himself was in the prime of life.  He did not want to lose me, but I must look out, and he would look out too.  At last the opportunity came, and it came from Ireland.  The Belfast and County Down Railway Chairman, Mr. R. W. Kelly, and a director, Lord (then Mr.) Pirrie, were deputed to see half a dozen or so likely young applicants in England and Scotland.  I was interviewed by these gentlemen in Glasgow, was selected for the vacant post of general manager, and in May, 1885, removed with my family to Belfast, and entered upon my duties there.

Lord Pirrie is a great shipbuilder of world-wide fame.  I was not long at the County Down before I discovered his wonderful energy, his marvellous capacity for work, his thoroughness, and keen business ability.  I always thought that at our interview at Saint Enoch he was as much impressed with the order and method which appeared in the office of which I had charge as by anything else.  I showed him everything very freely, and remember his appreciation and also his criticism, of which latter, as I afterwards found, he was at times by no means sparing, but if sometimes severe, it was always just and salutary.  How little one foresees events.  Not long had I left Glasgow before unexpected changes occurred.  In 1886, Mr. Wainwright took ill and died; soon after Mathieson went to Queensland; and in less than eight short years three general managers had succeeded Mr. Wainwright.