arranged that if a
storm occurred, and the bad side got shaky, they should do the best
they could and draw freely on their imaginations. They were sending old
messages. About 1, o'clock everything went wrong, as there was a storm
somewhere near Albany, and the bad side got shaky. Mr. Orton, the
president, and Wm. H. Vanderbilt and the other directors came in. I had
my heart trying to climb up around my oesophagus. I was paying a sheriff
five dollars a day to withhold judgment which had been entered against
me in a case which I had paid no attention to; and if the quadruplex had
not worked before the president, I knew I was to have trouble and might
lose my machinery. The New York Times came out next day with a full
account. I was given $5000 as part payment for the invention, which
made me easy, and I expected the whole thing would be closed up. But Mr.
Orton went on an extended tour just about that time. I had paid for all
the experiments on the quadruplex and exhausted the money, and I was
again in straits. In the mean time I had introduced the apparatus on the
lines of the company, where it was very successful.

"At that time the general superintendent of the Western Union was Gen.
T. T. Eckert (who had been Assistant Secretary of War with Stanton).
Eckert was secretly negotiating with Gould to leave the Western Union
and take charge of the Atlantic & Pacific--Gould's company. One day
Eckert called me into his office and made inquiries about money matters.
I told him Mr. Orton had gone off and left me without means, and I was
in straits. He told me I would never get another cent, but that he
knew a man who would buy it. I told him of my arrangement with the
electrician, and said I could not sell it as a whole to anybody; but if
I got enough for it, I would sell all my interest in any SHARE I might
have. He seemed to think his party would agree to this. I had a set
of quadruplex over in my shop, 10 and 12 Ward Street, Newark, and he
arranged to bring him over next evening to see the apparatus. So the
next morning Eckert came over with Jay Gould and introduced him to me.
This was the first time I had ever seen him. I exhibited and explained
the apparatus, and they departed. The next day Eckert sent for me, and
I was taken up to Gould's house, which was near the Windsor Hotel, Fifth
Avenue. In the basement he had an office. It was in the evening, and we
went in by the servants' entrance, as Eckert probably feared that h