uilding, he had given up all hopes of
getting help. He went to his boarding-house, and when he had paid for
the room and his breakfast the next morning, (he never ran in debt--for
he had a horror of it!) he had just thirty-seven cents left in the
world. After he had crept up the many flights of stairs, he shut the
door of his small room and knelt down beside his bed. He told God that
he was going to give up his invention--that perhaps it was not right for
him to succeed. He had tried to do something which he thought would be a
help in the world, and if he could not, he would try to be brave and
sensible about it. Then, being very tired, he fell asleep like a tired
child.

But the next morning--what do you think?--a young lady, the daughter of
the friendly senator, came rushing into the room where Mr. Morse was
eating his breakfast, and holding out both hands, said joyfully: "I've
come to congratulate you. Your bill has passed!"

"It cannot be," he answered.

"Oh, it is true. My father let me be the bearer of the good news."

"Well," said Mr. Morse, trembling with delight, "you, my dear
message-bearer, shall send the first message that ever goes across the
wires."

It did not take long to convince the world that Professor Morse (as he
was now called) had invented a fine thing. In less than a year a line
was completed from Washington to Baltimore, and Miss Ellsworth, the kind
senator's daughter, sent the first message ever heard over a recording
telegraph.

People found it a great blessing to be able to send quick news, and
Samuel Morse was soon called the greatest benefactor of the age. The man
who had lived in one room and who had gone for two days at a time
without food received so many invitations to banquets that he could not
go to half of them. The ten powers of Europe held a special congress and
sent the inventor eighty thousand dollars for a gift. The Sultan of
Turkey, the King of Prussia, the Queen of Spain, the Emperor of the
French, the King of Denmark, all sent decorations and presents. The name
of Samuel F. B. Morse was on every lip.

But all this success did not spoil him one bit. He was the same modest,
lovable man he had always been. Very few Americans have had so much
honor paid to them as he. When he was an old man, the telegraph people
all over the world wanted to show their esteem for him and so erected a
statue to his memory in Central Park, New York. An evening reception was
held in a large