d than a summons to the thoughtless
operator to appear before the general manager at Toronto. On reaching
the manager's office, his trial for neglect of duty was fortunately
interrupted by the call of two Englishmen; and while their conversation
proceeded, Edison slipped quietly out of the room, hurried to the Grand
Trunk freight depot, found a conductor he knew taking out a freight
train for Sarnia, and was not happy until the ferry-boat from Sarnia had
landed him once more on the Michigan shore. The Grand Trunk still owes
Mr. Edison the wages due him at the time he thus withdrew from its
service, but the claim has never been pressed.

The same winter of 1863-64, while at Port Huron, Edison had a further
opportunity of displaying his ingenuity. An ice-jam had broken the light
telegraph cable laid in the bed of the river across to Sarnia, and thus
communication was interrupted. The river is three-quarters of a mile
wide, and could not be crossed on foot; nor could the cable be repaired.
Edison at once suggested using the steam whistle of the locomotive,
and by manipulating the valve conversed the short and long outbursts of
shrill sound into the Morse code. An operator on the Sarnia shore was
quick enough to catch the significance of the strange whistling, and
messages were thus sent in wireless fashion across the ice-floes in the
river. It is said that such signals were also interchanged by military
telegraphers during the war, and possibly Edison may have heard of
the practice; but be that as it may, he certainly showed ingenuity
and resource in applying such a method to meet the necessity. It is
interesting to note that at this point the Grand Trunk now has its St.
Clair tunnel, through which the trains are hauled under the river-bed by
electric locomotives.

Edison had now begun unconsciously the roaming and drifting that took
him during the next five years all over the Middle States, and that
might well have wrecked the career of any one less persistent
and industrious. It was a period of his life corresponding to the
Wanderjahre of the German artisan, and was an easy way of gratifying a
taste for travel without the risk of privation. To-day there is little
temptation to the telegrapher to go to distant parts of the country on
the chance that he may secure a livelihood at the key. The ranks are
well filled everywhere, and of late years the telegraph as an art or
industry has shown relatively slight expansion, owin