hat I want; he found
it; but lost the place where he found it, so he might as well never have
found it at all.' Hereat I was enjoined to proceed forthwith to court
the Board of Education for a leave of absence, which I did successfully,
the board considering that a call so important and honorary was entitled
to their unqualified favor, which they generously granted.

"I reported to Mr. Edison on the following day, when he instructed me to
come to the laboratory at once to learn all the details of drawing and
carbonizing fibres, which it would be necessary to do in the Oriental
jungles. This I did, and, in the mean time, a set of suitable tools for
this purpose had been ordered to be made in the laboratory. As soon as
I learned my new trade, which I accomplished in a few days, Mr. Edison
directed me to the library of the laboratory to occupy a few days in
studying the geography of the Orient and, particularly, in drawing maps
of the tributaries of the Ganges, the Irrawaddy, and the Brahmaputra
rivers, and other regions which I expected to explore.

"It was while thus engaged that Mr. Edison came to me one day and said:
'If you will go up to the house' (his palatial home not far away) 'and
look behind the sofa in the library you will find a joint of bamboo, a
specimen of that found in South America; bring it down and make a study
of it; if you find something equal to that I will be satisfied.' At the
home I was guided to the library by an Irish servant-woman, to whom I
communicated my knowledge of the definite locality of the sample joint.
She plunged her arm, bare and herculean, behind the aforementioned sofa,
and holding aloft a section of wood, called out in a mood of discovery:
'Is that it?' Replying in the affirmative, she added, under an impulse
of innocent divination that whatever her wizard master laid hands upon
could result in nothing short of an invention, 'Sure, sor, and what's he
going to invint out o' that?'

"My kit of tools made, my maps drawn, my Oriental geography reviewed, I
come to the point when matters of immediate departure are discussed; and
when I took occasion to mention to my chief that, on the subject of life
insurance, underwriters refuse to take any risks on an enterprise so
hazardous, Mr. Edison said that, if I did not place too high a valuation
on my person, he would take the risk himself. I replied that I was born
and bred in New York State, but now that I had become a Jersey man I did
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