a week and
he took the job eagerly."

"Think how a boy would howl at working for that now," Laurie exclaimed.

"No doubt there were boys who would have howled then," answered Mr.
Hazen, "although in those days young fellows expected to work hard and
receive little pay until they had learned their trade. Perhaps the
youthful Mr. Watson had the common sense to cherish this creed; at any
rate, there was not a lazy bone in his body, and as there were no such
things to be had as automatic screw machines, he went vigorously to
work making the castings by hand, trying as he did so not to blind his
eyes with the flying splinters of metal."

"Then what happened?" demanded Laurie.

"Well, Watson stuck at his job and in the meantime gleaned right and
left such scraps of practical knowledge as a boy would pick up in such
a place. By the end of his second year he had had his finger in many
pies and had worked on about every sort of electrical contrivance then
known: call bells, annunciators, galvanometers; telegraph keys,
sounders, relays, registers, and printing telegraph instruments. Think
what a rich experience his two years of apprenticeship had given him!"

"You bet!" ejaculated Ted appreciatively.

"Now as Tom Watson was not only clever but was willing to take infinite
pains with whatever he set his hand to, never stinting nor measuring
his time or strength, he became a great favorite with those who came to
the shop to have different kinds of experimental apparatus made. Many
of the ideas brought to him to be worked out came from visionaries who
had succeeded in capturing the financial backing of an unwary believer
and convinced themselves and him that here was an idea that was to stir
the universe. But too many of these schemes, alas, proved worthless and
as their common fate was the rubbish heap, it is strange that the
indefatigable Thomas Watson did not have his faith in pioneer work
entirely destroyed. But youth is buoyed up by perpetual hope; and
paradoxical as it may seem, his enthusiasm never lagged. Each time he
felt, with the inventor, that they might be standing on the brink of
gigantic unfoldings and he toiled with energy to bring something
practical out of the chaos. And when at length it became evident beyond
all question that the idea was never to unfold into anything practical,
he would, with the same zealous spirit, attack another seer's problem."

"Didn't he ever meet any successful inventors?" questio