and thus break the circuit. I shut my eyes and pulled, but
the nitric acid splashed all over my face and ran down my back.

"'I rushed to a sink, which was only half big enough, and got in as well
as I could, and wiggled around for several minutes to let the water
dilute the acid and stop the pain. My face and back were streaked with
yellow; the skin was thoroughly oxidized.

"'I did not go on the street by daylight for two weeks, as the
appearance of my face was dreadful. The skin, however, peeled off, and
new skin replaced it without any damage.'

"The young inventor went to New York City to seek better fortunes. First
he tried to sell his stock printer and failed in the effort. Then he
returned to Boston and got up a duplex telegraph--for sending two
messages at once over one wire. He tried to demonstrate it between
Rochester and New York City. After a week's trial, his test did not
work, partly because of the inefficiency of his assistant.

"He had run in debt eight hundred dollars to build this duplex
apparatus. His other inventions had cost considerable money to make, and
he had failed to sell them. So his books, apparatus and other belongings
were left in Boston, and when he returned to New York he arrived there
with but a few cents in his pocket. He was very hungry. He walked the
streets in the early morning looking for breakfast but with so little
money left that he did not wish to spend it.

"Passing a wholesale tea house, he saw a man testing tea by tasting it.
The young inventor asked the 'taster' for some of the tea. The man
smiled and held out a cup of the fragrant drink. That tea was Thomas A.
Edison's first breakfast in New York City.

"He walked back and forth hunting for a telegraph operator he had known,
but that young man was also out of work. When Edison finally found him,
all his friend could do was to lend him a dollar!

"By this time Edison was nearly starved. With such limited resources he
gave solemn thought to what he should select that would be most
satisfying. He decided to buy apple dumplings and coffee, and in telling
afterward of his first real 'eats' in New York, Mr. Edison said he never
had anything that tasted so good.

"Just as young Ben Franklin, on arriving in New York City from Boston,
looked for a job in a printing office, the youthful modern inventor
applied for work in a telegraph office there. As there was no vacancy
and he needed the rest of his borrowed dollar for me