fterward.]

Supplementing the story of Mr. Andrews is that of Lieut. F. J. Sprague,
who also gives a curious glimpse of the glorious uncertainties and
vicissitudes of that formative period. Mr. Sprague served on the jury
at the Crystal Palace Exhibition with Darwin's son--the present Sir
Horace--and after the tests were ended left the Navy and entered
Edison's service at the suggestion of Mr. E. H. Johnson, who was
Edison's shrewd recruiting sergeant in those days: "I resigned sooner
than Johnson expected, and he had me on his hands. Meanwhile he had
called upon me to make a report of the three-wire system, known in
England as the Hopkinson, both Dr. John Hopkinson and Mr. Edison being
independent inventors at practically the same time. I reported on that,
left London, and landed in New York on the day of the opening of the
Brooklyn Bridge in 1883--May 24--with a year's leave of absence.

"I reported at the office of Mr. Edison on Fifth Avenue and told him I
had seen Johnson. He looked me over and said: 'What did he promise you?'
I replied: 'Twenty-five hundred dollars a year.' He did not say much,
but looked it. About that time Mr. Andrews and I came together. On July
2d of that year we were ordered to Sunbury, and to be ready to start the
station on the fourth. The electrical work had to be done in forty-eight
hours! Having travelled around the world, I had cultivated an
indifference to any special difficulties of that kind. Mr. Andrews and
I worked in collaboration until the night of the third. I think he was
perhaps more appreciative than I was of the discipline of the Edison
Construction Department, and thought it would be well for us to wait
until the morning of the fourth before we started up. I said we were
sent over to get going, and insisted on starting up on the night of the
third. We had an Armington & Sims engine with sight-feed oiler. I had
never seen one, and did not know how it worked, with the result that we
soon burned up the babbitt metal in the bearings and spent a good part
of the night getting them in order. The next day Mr. Edison, Mr. Insull,
and the chief engineer of the construction department appeared on
the scene and wanted to know what had happened. They found an engine
somewhat loose in the bearings, and there followed remarks which would
not look well in print. Andrews skipped from under; he obeyed orders; I
did not. But the plant ran, and it was the first three-wire station in
this cou