as there, and insisted on carrying my satchel for me. I never could
understand that."

Among the more distinguished visitors of the electric-lighting period
was President Diaz, with whom Edison became quite intimate. "President
Diaz, of Mexico, visited this country with Mrs. Diaz, a highly educated
and beautiful woman. She spoke very good English. They both took a deep
interest in all they saw. I don't know how it ever came about, as it is
not in my line, but I seemed to be delegated to show them around. I took
them to railroad buildings, electric-light plants, fire departments, and
showed them a great variety of things. It lasted two days." Of another
visit Edison says: "Sitting Bull and fifteen Sioux Indians came to
Washington to see the Great Father, and then to New York, and went
to the Goerck Street works. We could make some very good pyrotechnics
there, so we determined to give the Indians a scare. But it didn't work.
We had an arc there of a most terrifying character, but they never moved
a muscle." Another episode at Goerck Street did not find the visitors
quite so stoical. "In testing dynamos at Goerck Street we had a long
flat belt running parallel with the floor, about four inches above it,
and travelling four thousand feet a minute. One day one of the
directors brought in three or four ladies to the works to see the new
electric-light system. One of the ladies had a little poodle led by a
string. The belt was running so smoothly and evenly, the poodle did not
notice the difference between it and the floor, and got into the belt
before we could do anything. The dog was whirled around forty or fifty
times, and a little flat piece of leather came out--and the ladies
fainted."

A very interesting period, on the social side, was the visit paid by
Edison and his family to Europe in 1889, when he had made a splendid
exhibit of his inventions and apparatus at the great Paris Centennial
Exposition of that year, to the extreme delight of the French,
who welcomed him with open arms. The political sentiments that the
Exposition celebrated were not such as to find general sympathy in
monarchical Europe, so that the "crowned heads" were conspicuous by
their absence. It was not, of course, by way of theatrical antithesis
that Edison appeared in Paris at such a time. But the contrast was none
the less striking and effective. It was felt that, after all, that which
the great exposition exemplified at its best--the triumph o