knocked senseless.'

"The two engineers, with a feeling that all was not as it should be,
kept a sharp lookout and saw each other just in time to avert a fatal
accident. But young Edison was cited to trial, for gross neglect of
duty, by the general manager. During an informal hearing two Englishmen
called on the manager. While he was talking with them the young night
operator disappeared. Boarding a freight train bound for Port Sarnia, he
made his escape from the five-years' term in prison threatened by the
irate manager. Edison afterward confessed that his heart did not leave
his throat until he had crossed the ferry to Port Huron and 'one wide
river' lay between him and the Canadian authorities.

"Following his escape from Canada young Edison knocked about the home
country, North and South. As it was during the Civil War he had some
peculiar adventures. After making a long circuit, broken in many places
by 'short circuits,' the journeyman telegrapher landed in Port Huron,
and wrote his friend Adams, then in Boston to find him a job.

"His friend relates that he asked the Boston manager of the Western
Union Telegraph office if he wanted a first-class operator from the
West.

"'What kind of copy does he make?'" was the manager's first query.
"Adams continues:

"'I passed Edison's letter through the window for his inspection. He was
surprised, for it was almost as plain as print, and asked:

"'Can he take it off the wire like that?'

"'I said he certainly could, and that there was nobody who could stick
him. He told me to send for my man and I did. When Edison came he landed
the job without delay.'"

"The inventor himself has told the story of his reporting for duty in
Boston:

"'The manager asked me when I was ready to go to work.

"'_Now_!' said I, and was instructed to return at 5:30 P.M., which I
did, to the minute. I came into the operators' room and was ushered into
the night manager's presence.

"'The weather was cold and I was poorly dressed; so my appearance, as I
was told afterward, occasioned considerable merriment, and the night
operators conspired to "put up a job on the jay from the wild and woolly
West." I was given a pen and told to take the New York No. 1 wire. After
an hour's wait I was asked to take my place at a certain table and
receive a special report for the Boston _Herald_, the conspirators
having arranged to have one of the fastest operators in New York send
the despatch and "salt"