the lonely works, spent a vigil with him, and
toward morning wanted coffee. There was only one little inn near
by, frequented by longshoremen and employees from the soap-works and
cement-factories--a rough lot--and there at daybreak they went as soon
as the other customers had left for work. "The place had a bar and six
bare tables, and was simply infested with roaches. The only things
that I ever could get were coffee made from burnt bread, with brown
molasses-cake. I ordered these for Gouraud. The taste of the coffee, the
insects, etc., were too much. He fainted. I gave him a big dose of gin,
and this revived him. He went back to the works and waited until six
when the day men came, and telegraphed for a carriage. He lost all
interest in the experiments after that, and I was ordered back to
America." Edison states, however, that the automatic was finally adopted
in England and used for many years; indeed, is still in use there. But
they took whatever was needed from his system, and he "has never had a
cent from them."

Arduous work was at once resumed at home on duplex and quadruplex
telegraphy, just as though there had been no intermission or
discouragement over dots twenty-seven feet long. A clue to his activity
is furnished in the fact that in 1872 he had applied for thirty-eight
patents in the class of telegraphy, and twenty-five in 1873; several
of these being for duplex methods, on which he had experimented. The
earlier apparatus had been built several years prior to this, as shown
by a curious little item of news that appeared in the Telegrapher
of January 30, 1869: "T. A. Edison has resigned his situation in the
Western Union office, Boston, and will devote his time to bringing out
his inventions." Oh, the supreme, splendid confidence of youth! Six
months later, as we have seen, he had already made his mark, and the
same journal, in October, 1869, could say: "Mr. Edison is a young man
of the highest order of mechanical talent, combined with good scientific
electrical knowledge and experience. He has already invented and
patented a number of valuable and useful inventions, among which may be
mentioned the best instrument for double transmission yet brought out."
Not bad for a novice of twenty-two. It is natural, therefore, after his
intervening work on indicators, stock tickers, automatic telegraphs, and
typewriters, to find him harking back to duplex telegraphy, if, indeed,
he can be said to have dropped it in