234 SAMUEL FINLEY BEEESE MORSE. 



to be getting rather shiftless, he is wasting his 

 time over some silly invention, a machine by which 

 he expects to send messages from one place to 

 another. He is a very good painter, and might do 

 well if he would only stick to his business ; but, 

 Lord ! " he added, with a sneer of contempt, " the 

 idea of telling by a little streak of lightning what 

 a body is saying at the other end of it ! " 



"Judge of my astonishment," says the young 

 man, " when he informed me that the ' shiftless 

 individual, whose foolish waste of time so much 

 excited his commiseration, was none other than the 

 president of the National Academy of Design, 

 the most exalted position, in my youthful artistic 

 fancy, it was possible for mortal to attain." 



Once more, in some way, Morse obtained the 

 money to go to Washington, and make another 

 effort. December 30, 1842, a bill was at last 

 submitted, asking for the thirty-thousand-dollar 

 appropriation. It received much ridicule from 

 some of the members. One suggested that there 

 should be an appropriation for mesmeric experi- 

 ments ; another suggested the same for Millerism. 

 At last the vote was taken in the House, Morse 

 sitting in the gallery watching the result with 

 feverish anxiety. The vote stood 89 yeas to 83 

 nays. IT WAS CARRIED. 



Would it pass the Senate ? The amount of 

 business to be transacted made its coming up 

 improbable. The last day of the session came. 

 Morse sat all the day and evening in the gallery, 



