had been cheated. This hurt his pride, and
he determined to get even. One day Epstein appeared and said:
'Good-morning, Mr. Bergmann, have you any chips to-day?' 'No,' said
Bergmann, 'I have none.' 'That's strange, Mr. Bergmann; won't you
look?' No, he wouldn't look; he knew he had none. Finally Epstein was so
persistent that Bergmann called an assistant and told him to go and
see if he had any chips. He returned and said they had the largest and
finest lot they ever had. Epstein went up to several boxes piled full of
chips, and so heavy that he could not lift even one end of a box. 'Now,
Mr. Bergmann,' said Epstein, 'how much for the lot?' 'Epstein,' said
Bergmann, 'you have cheated me, and I will no longer sell by the lot,
but will sell only by the pound.' No amount of argument would apparently
change Bergmann's determination to sell by the pound, but finally
Epstein got up to $250 for the lot, and Bergmann, appearing as if
disgusted, accepted and made him count out the money. Then he said:
'Well, Epstein, good-bye, I've got to go down to Wall Street.' Epstein
and his assistant then attempted to lift the boxes to carry them out,
but couldn't; and then discovered that calculations as to quantity had
been thrown out because the boxes had all been screwed down to the floor
and mostly filled with boards with a veneer of brass chips. He made such
a scene that he had to be removed by the police. I met him several days
afterward and he said he had forgiven Mr. Bergmann, as he was such a
smart business man, and the scheme was so ingenious.

"One day as a joke I filled three or four sheets of foolscap paper with
a jumble of figures and told Bergmann they were calculations showing the
great loss of power from blowing the factory whistle. Bergmann thought
it real, and never after that would he permit the whistle to blow."

Another glimpse of the "social side" is afforded in the following little
series of pen-pictures of the same place and time: "I had my laboratory
at the top of the Bergmann works, after moving from Menlo Park. The
building was six stories high. My father came there when he was eighty
years of age. The old man had powerful lungs. In fact, when I was
examined by the Mutual Life Insurance Company, in 1873, my lung
expansion was taken by the doctor, and the old gentleman was there
at the time. He said to the doctor: 'I wish you would take my lung
expansion, too.' The doctor took it, and his surprise was very great