ined that he had been ordered to report at the
Boston office, and was finally told to sit down in the operating room,
where his advent created much merriment. The operators made fun of him
loudly enough for him to hear. He didn't care. A few minutes later a
New York operator, noted for his swiftness, called up the Boston
office. There was no one at liberty.

"'Well,' said the office chief, 'let the new man try him.'

"Edison sat down and for four hours and a half wrote out messages in
his clear round hand, stuck a date and number on them, and threw them
on the floor for the office boy to pick up. The time he took in
numbering and dating the sheets were the only seconds he was not
writing out transmitted words. Faster and faster ticked the
instrument, and faster and faster went Edison's fingers, until the
rapidity with which the messages came tumbling on the floor attracted
the attention of the other operators, who, when their work was done,
gathered around to witness the spectacle. At the close of the four and
a half hours' work there flashed from New York the salutation:

"'Hello!'

"'Hello yourself!' ticked Edison.

"'Who are you?' rattled into the Boston office.

"'Tom Edison.'

"'You are the first man in the country', ticked in the instrument,
'that could ever take me at my fastest, and the only one who could
ever sit at the other end of my wire for more than two hours and a
half. I'm proud to know you.'"

While employed as telegraph operator Edison's inventive mind was hard
at work. Accordingly, when but seventeen years of age he invented the
Duplex telegraph which made it possible "to send two messages in
opposite directions on the same wire at the same time, without causing
any confusion."

Though a brilliant operator, young Edison found it difficult to hold a
job, as he was always neglecting his regular work to "fool with
experiments," as his employers put it.

Accordingly, when twenty-one years of age, he found himself in New
York City seeking work. Suppose we invite Mr. Edison to tell us of
this dramatic period of his life.

"On the third day after my arrival, while sitting in the office of the
Laws Gold Repeating Telegraph Company, the complicated general
instrument for sending messages on all the lines suddenly came to a
stop with a crash. Within two minutes over three hundred boys,--a boy
from every broker in the street, rushed upstairs and crowded the long
aisle and office that hardly had ro