b as an inventor! Never is he so preoccupied or fretted with cares as
not to drop all thought of his work for a few moments to listen to a new
story, with a ready smile all the while, and a hearty, boyish laugh at
the end. His laugh, in fact, is sometimes almost aboriginal; slapping
his hands delightedly on his knees, he rocks back and forth and fairly
shouts his pleasure. Recently a daily report of one of his companies
that had just been started contained a large order amounting to several
thousand dollars, and was returned by him with a miniature sketch of a
small individual viewing that particular item through a telescope! His
facility in making hasty but intensely graphic sketches is proverbial.
He takes great delight in imitating the lingo of the New York street
gamin. A dignified person named James may be greeted with: "Hully Gee!
Chimmy, when did youse blow in?" He likes to mimic and imitate types,
generally, that are distasteful to him. The sanctimonious hypocrite, the
sleek speculator, and others whom he has probably encountered in life
are done "to the queen's taste."

One very cold winter's day he entered the laboratory library in fine
spirits, "doing" the decayed dandy, with imaginary cane under his
arm, struggling to put on a pair of tattered imaginary gloves, with
a self-satisfied smirk and leer that would have done credit to a real
comedian. This particular bit of acting was heightened by the fact that
even in the coldest weather he wears thin summer clothes, generally
acid-worn and more or less disreputable. For protection he varies the
number of his suits of underclothing, sometimes wearing three or four
sets, according to the thermometer.

If one could divorce Edison from the idea of work, and could regard
him separate and apart from his embodiment as an inventor and man of
science, it might truly be asserted that his temperament is essentially
mercurial. Often he is in the highest spirits, with all the spontaneity
of youth, and again he is depressed, moody, and violently angry. Anger
with him, however, is a good deal like the story attributed to Napoleon:

"Sire, how is it that your judgment is not affected by your great rage?"
asked one of his courtiers.

"Because," said the Emperor, "I never allow it to rise above this line,"
drawing his hand across his throat. Edison has been seen sometimes
almost beside himself with anger at a stupid mistake or inexcusable
oversight on the part of an assistant,