t Billy L. had come in
full of soda-water and invented the ruin before him. He walked backward
and forward, about a minute, then coming up to my table put his fist
down, and said: 'If Billy L. ever does that again, I will discharge
him.' It was needless to say that there were other operators who took
advantage of that kind of discipline, and I had many calls at night
after that, but none with such destructive effects."

This was one aspect of life as it presented itself to the sensitive
and observant young operator in Louisville. But there was another,
more intellectual side, in the contact afforded with journalism and its
leaders, and the information taken in almost unconsciously as to the
political and social movements of the time. Mr. Edison looks back on
this with great satisfaction. "I remember," he says, "the discussions
between the celebrated poet and journalist George D. Prentice, then
editor of the Courier-Journal, and Mr. Tyler, of the Associated Press.
I believe Prentice was the father of the humorous paragraph of the
American newspaper. He was poetic, highly educated, and a brilliant
talker. He was very thin and small. I do not think he weighed over one
hundred and twenty five pounds. Tyler was a graduate of Harvard, and had
a very clear enunciation, and, in sharp contrast to Prentice, he was a
large man. After the paper had gone to press, Prentice would generally
come over to Tyler's office and start talking. Having while in Tyler's
office heard them arguing on the immortality of the soul, etc., I asked
permission of Mr. Tyler if, after finishing the press matter, I might
come in and listen to the conversation, which I did many times after.
One thing I never could comprehend was that Tyler had a sideboard with
liquors and generally crackers. Prentice would pour out half a glass of
what they call corn whiskey, and would dip the crackers in it and eat
them. Tyler took it sans food. One teaspoonful of that stuff would put
me to sleep."

Mr. Edison throws also a curious side-light on the origin of the comic
column in the modern American newspaper, the telegraph giving to a new
joke or a good story the ubiquity and instantaneity of an important
historical event. "It was the practice of the press operators all over
the country at that time, when a lull occurred, to start in and send
jokes or stories the day men had collected; and these were copied and
pasted up on the bulletin-board. Cleveland was the originatin