o bring in her children. The door
opened and in came about twenty young ladies elegantly gowned, not one
of whom was under seventeen. When Edison saw them I thought he would
faint. He called me on the line and asked me to come to the stage and
explain the mysteries of the Morse system. I replied that I thought he
was in the right place, and told him to get busy with his talk on dots
and dashes. Always modest, Edison was so overcome he could hardly speak,
but he managed to say, finally, that as his friend Mr. Adams was better
equipped with cheek than he was, we would change places, and he would
do the demonstrating while I explained the whole thing. This caused the
bevy to turn to see where the lecturer was. I went on the stage, said
something, and we did some telegraphing over the line. I guess it was
satisfactory; we got the money, which was the main point to us." Edison
tells the story in a similar manner, but insists that it was he who
saved the situation. "I managed to say that I would work the apparatus,
and Mr. Adams would make the explanations. Adams was so embarrassed
that he fell over an ottoman. The girls tittered, and this increased
his embarrassment until he couldn't say a word. The situation was so
desperate that for a reason I never could explain I started in myself
and talked and explained better than I ever did before or since. I can
talk to two or three persons; but when there are more they radiate some
unknown form of influence which paralyzes my vocal cords. However, I got
out of this scrape, and many times afterward when I chanced with other
operators to meet some of the young ladies on their way home from
school, they would smile and nod, much to the mystification of the
operators, who were ignorant of this episode."

Another amusing story of this period of impecuniosity and financial
strain is told thus by Edison: "My friend Adams was working in the
Franklin Telegraph Company, which competed with the Western Union. Adams
was laid off, and as his financial resources had reached absolute zero
centigrade, I undertook to let him sleep in my hall bedroom. I generally
had hall bedrooms, because they were cheap and I needed money to
buy apparatus. I also had the pleasure of his genial company at the
boarding-house about a mile distant, but at the sacrifice of some
apparatus. One morning, as we were hastening to breakfast, we came
into Tremont Row, and saw a large crowd in front of two small 'gents'
furnis