Arthur Warren Scullin schmoozed with everyone, even telemarketers. "He never hung up on them," said Mr. Scullin's widow, Cathy. "He'd ask them where they were calling from. He would ask them what the weather was like, what time it was."

His gregariousness could get on the nerves of his children, Warren, Jim and Nora, when they were younger. When everyone else was, say, cruising through the tollbooth at the Throgs Neck Bridge, they would be sitting there because their father was chatting up the toll taker.

As a senior vice president and director of taxes at Marsh Inc., Mr. Scullin, 57, traveled all over the world. Naturally, he talked to everyone he met. "He would ask people, `Do you know anybody in New York?' " Mrs. Scullin recalled. "If they said no, he would say, `You do now,' and he'd give them his business card."

Born in Woodside, Queens, Mr. Scullin met his wife at the Lowery Street subway station of the Flushing IRT 36 years ago, and together they migrated to Auburndale, Queens. Every week, Mr. Scullin would return to Woodside to visit his mother, Ethel, 90. "He used to say that when he retired, he was going to move back to an apartment in Woodside so he could return to his roots," Mrs. Scullin said. "I would say, `I'll send you a postcard from Arizona.' "