ad of swelling to
_goose_ eggs, and even to _ostrich_ eggs (as some that laid them so
enthusiastically anticipated when they were so closely packed), have
shrunk to _pigeons'_ eggs, if not to the diminutive _sparrows'_. To keep
up the figure, I am thankful there are any left not addled."

He was all the time absorbed in the preparation of his report as
Commissioner to the Paris Exposition, and it was, of course, a source of
great gratification to him to learn from the answers to his questions
sent to the telegraph officers of the whole world, that the Morse system
was practically the only one in general use. As one of his correspondents
put it--"The cry is, 'Give us the Morse.'"

The necessity for the completion of this work, and his desire to give his
children every advantage of study, kept him longer in Europe than he had
expected, and he writes to his brother Sidney on December 1, 1867: "I
long to return, for age creeps on apace, and I wish to put my house in
order for a longer and better journey to a better home."

In the early part of February, 1868, he and his wife and daughter and
youngest son left Dresden for Paris, stopping, however, a few days in
Berlin. Mr. George Bancroft was our minister at the Prussian court, and
he did all that courtesy could suggest to make the stay of his
distinguished countryman a pleasant one. He urged him to stay longer, so
that he might have the pleasure of presenting him at court, but this
honor Morse felt obliged to decline. The inventor did, however, find time
to visit the government telegraph office, of which Colonel (afterwards
General) von Chauvin was the head, and here he received an ovation from
all the operators, several hundred in number, who were seated at their
instruments in what was then the largest operating-room in the world.

Another incident of his visit to Berlin I shall give in the words of Mr.
Prime:--

"Not to recount the many tributes of esteem and respect paid him by Dr.
Siemens, and other gentlemen eminent in the specialty of telegraphy, one
other unexpected compliment may be mentioned. The Professor was presented
to the accomplished General Director of the Posts of the North German
Bund, Privy Councillor von Phillipsborn, in whose department the
telegraph had been comprised before Prussia became so great and the
centre of a powerful confederation.

"At the time of their visit the Director was so engaged, and that, too,
in another part of the Post-Amt,