y draw goodly
salaries, but they have an interest in the profits that is no small
matter.

The secrets of the place are protected by having each workman stick
right to one thing and work in one room. No running around is
allowed--each employee goes to a certain place and remains there all day.
To be found elsewhere is a misdemeanor, and while spies at the Edison
factory are not shot, they have been known to disappear into space with
great velocity.

To make amends for the close restrictions on workers, an extra wage is
paid and the eight-hour day prevails, so help is never wanting.

Ninety-nine workers out of a hundred want their wages, and nothing else.
Promotion, advancement and education are things that never occur to them.
But for the few that have the stuff in them, Edison is always on the
lookout. His place is really a college, for to know the man is an
education. He radiates good-cheer and his animation is catching.

To a woman who wanted him to write a motto for her son, Edison wrote,
"Never look at the clock!" The argument is plain--get the thing done.

And around the Edison laboratory there is no use of looking at the clock,
for none of them runs. That is the classic joke of the place. Years ago
Edison expressed his contempt for the man who watched the clock, and now
every Christmas his office family take up a collection and buy him a
clock, and present it with great ceremony. He replies in a speech on the
nebular hypothesis and all are very happy. One year the present assumed
the form of an Ingersoll Dollar Watch, which the Wizard showed to me
with great pride. In the stockade is a beautiful library building and
here you see clocks galore, some of which must have cost a thousand
dollars a piece, all silent. One clock had a neatly printed card
attached, "Don't look at this clock--it has stopped." And another, "You
may look at this clock, for you can't stop it!" It was already stopped.

One very elegant clock had a solid block of wood where the works should
have been, but the face and golden hands were all complete.

However, one clock was running, with a tick needlessly loud, but this
clock had no hands.

The Edison Library is a gigantic affair, with two balconies and
bookstacks limitless.

The intent was to have a scientific library right at hand that would
compass the knowledge of the world. The Laboratory is quite as complete,
for in it is every chemical substance known to man, all labeled,
class