ng in his brain; but the quadruplex
engrossed him. "This problem was of most difficult and complicated kind,
and I bent all my energies toward its solution. It required a peculiar
effort of the mind, such as the imagining of eight different things
moving simultaneously on a mental plane, without anything to demonstrate
their efficiency." It is perhaps hardly to be wondered at that when
notified he would have to pay 12 1/2 per cent. extra if his taxes in
Newark were not at once paid, he actually forgot his own name when asked
for it suddenly at the City Hall, lost his place in the line, and, the
fatal hour striking, had to pay the surcharge after all!

So important an invention as the quadruplex could not long go begging,
but there were many difficulties connected with its introduction, some
of which are best described in Mr. Edison's own words: "Around 1873 the
owners of the Automatic Telegraph Company commenced negotiations with
Jay Gould for the purchase of the wires between New York and Washington,
and the patents for the system, then in successful operation. Jay Gould
at that time controlled the Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Company, and
was competing with the Western Union and endeavoring to depress Western
Union stock on the Exchange. About this time I invented the quadruplex.
I wanted to interest the Western Union Telegraph Company in it, with
a view of selling it, but was unsuccessful until I made an arrangement
with the chief electrician of the company, so that he could be known as
a joint inventor and receive a portion of the money. At that time I was
very short of money, and needed it more than glory. This electrician
appeared to want glory more than money, so it was an easy trade.
I brought my apparatus over and was given a separate room with a
marble-tiled floor, which, by-the-way, was a very hard kind of floor to
sleep on, and started in putting on the finishing touches.

"After two months of very hard work, I got a detail at regular times of
eight operators, and we got it working nicely from one room to another
over a wire which ran to Albany and back. Under certain conditions of
weather, one side of the quadruplex would work very shakily, and I had
not succeeded in ascertaining the cause of the trouble. On a certain
day, when there was a board meeting of the company, I was to make an
exhibition test. The day arrived. I had picked the best operators in New
York, and they were familiar with the apparatus. I