488 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of this time he was able to go into the telegraph-office at Port Huron. 

 Here he worked for six months, and then went to Stratford, Canada, 

 as night-operator. He soon after went to Adrian, Michigan, where, in 

 addition to his telegraph-office, he had a small shop and tools, to which 

 he turned his hand at odd moments for the purpose of repairing instru- 

 ments. This situation he lost by violating some rule while absorbed in 

 his workshop, but in two months after appeared in Indianapolis, where 

 he came out with his first invention, an automatic repeater an arrange- 

 ment for transferring a message from one wire to another without the aid 

 of an operator. From this place he went in turn to Cincinnati, Memphis, 

 Louisville, New Orleans, and back again to Cincinnati, where we find 

 him in 18G7, at the age of twenty, absorbed in projects of invention. His 

 utter negligence of dress and appearance, his insatiable thirst for read- 

 ing, and his enthusiastic attempts to solve what appeared to others im- 

 possible, together with his willingness to work at all hours of the day 

 or night, earned him the name of " Looney," by which he was best 

 known for many years. Reaching his office here one night and finding 

 it " on strike," he took in the situation, and went to work, keeping it 

 up all night, working to his utmost, receiving the press dispatches. 

 For this act he was raised from a salary of $65 to $105 per month, and 

 given the best line in the office. While here he conceived the idea, 

 afterward perfected in Boston, of sending two messages at the same 

 time over the same wire. His " everlasting experiments " were looked 

 upon with disfavor by the management, and the imagined neglect of 

 his work caused so much dissatisfaction that he quit the office and re- 

 turned home to Port Huron. 



Here he soon received a call from the manager of the Boston office 

 to be the Boston operator on the " crack" New York wire. The man- 

 ager knew him, but the appearance there of the very similitude of a 

 green country gawky raised a shout of laughter at his expense, which 

 almost unnerved him, and, to make the matter worse, before he had 

 time to compose himself, he was shown his place to make a trial. The 

 position was the dread of operators ; the New York man was one of the 

 fastest senders in the country, delighted in victims, and in this instance 

 sat at his instrument with a grim satisfaction, waiting to open on the 

 "new man," and chuckling with his Boston comrades over their expected 

 fun. They commenced, and the New York man crowded his sending- 

 speed to his utmost, with never a " break " by the new man receiving. 

 At the end of the message, the astonished and exhausted New York 

 operator adds, " "Who the deuce are you, anyhow ? " to which the 

 new man at Boston promptly replies, " I'm Tom Edison shake 

 hands." 



We can make but brief mention of a few of the many incidents 

 connected with Mr. Edison's history. In the Boston office one of his 

 first efforts was at " internal improvement." The office was infested 

 with cockroaches. He set up an apparatus for their automatic de- 



