congressmen, and petitioned for enough money
from the public purse to build a line from Baltimore to
Washington,--forty miles only. It is traditionally slow work
in getting a bill through Congress. Weary with waiting,
Morse went to Europe, to try his new seed in that old soil.
It failed to germinate abroad as it had at home. Men with
money acknowledged that the idea was a scientific success,
but could not believe that it might be made a business
success.

"What would people care for instantaneous news?" they said.
"Some might, it is true, but the great mass would be content
to wait for their news in the good old way. To lay miles of
wire in the earth is to bury a large treasure in money. We
cannot see our way clear to getting it back again out of the
pockets of the public. Your wires work, Mr. Morse, but, from
a business point of view, there's more cost than profit in
the idea."

It may be that these exact words were not spoken, but the
answer of Europe was near enough to this to send the
inventor home disappointed. He began again his weary waiting
on the slowly-revolving wheels of the congressional
machinery.

March 3, 1843, came. It was the last day of the session.
With the stroke of midnight on that day the existing
Congress would die, and a new one be born, with which the
weary work of the education of congressmen would have to be
gone over again. The inventor had been given half a loaf.
His bill had been passed, on February 23, in the House. All
day of March 3 he hung about the Senate chamber petitioning,
where possible, for the other half of his loaf, faintly
hoping that in the last will and testament of the expiring
Congress some small legacy might be left for him.

Evening came. The clock-hands circled rapidly round.
Pressure of bills and confusion of legislation grew greater
minute by minute. The floodgates of the deluge are lifted
upon Congress in its last hours, and business pours onward
in such an overwhelming fashion that small private
petitioners can scarcely hope that the doors of the ark of
safety will be opened to their petty claims. Morse hung
about the chamber until the midnight hour was almost ready
to strike. Every moment confusion seemed to grow "worse
confounded." The work of a month of easy-going legislation
was being compressed into an hour of haste and excitement.
The inventor at last left the Capitol, a saddened and
disappointed man, and made his way home, the last shreds of
hope s