"Would ten dollars be of any service?"

"Ten dollars would save my life. That is all it would do."

I paid the money, all that I had, and we dined together. It was a modest
meal, but good, and after he had finished, he said:

"This is my first meal for twenty-four hours. Strother, don't be an
artist. It means beggary. Your life depends upon people who know nothing
of your art and care nothing for you. A house dog lives better, and the
very sensitiveness that stimulates an artist to work keeps him alive to
suffering."*

* Prime, p. 424.

In 1835 Morse received an appointment to the teaching staff of New York
University and moved his workshop to a room in the University building
in Washington Square. "There," says his biographer*, "he wrought through
the year 1836, probably the darkest and longest year of his life, giving
lessons to pupils in the art of painting while his mind was in the
throes of the great invention." In that year he took into his confidence
one of his colleagues in the University, Leonard D. Gale, who assisted
him greatly, in improving the apparatus, while the inventor himself
formulated the rudiments of the telegraphic alphabet, or Morse Code, as
it is known today. At length all was ready for a test and the message
flashed from transmitter to receiver. The telegraph was born, though
only an infant as yet. "Yes, that room of the University was the
birthplace of the Recording Telegraph," said Morse years later. On
September 2, 1837, a successful experiment was made with seventeen
hundred feet of copper wire coiled around the room, in the presence of
Alfred Vail, a student, whose family owned the Speedwell Iron Works,
at Morristown, New Jersey, and who at once took an interest in the
invention and persuaded his father, Judge Stephen Vail, to advance money
for experiments. Morse filed a petition for a patent in October and
admitted his colleague Gale; as well as Alfred Vail, to partnership.
Experiments followed at the Vail shops, all the partners working day and
night in their enthusiasm. The apparatus was then brought to New York
and gentlemen of the city were invited to the University to see it work
before it left for Washington. The visitors were requested to write
dispatches, and the words were sent round a three-mile coil of wire and
read at the other end of the room by one who had no prior knowledge of
the message.

* Prime, p. 311.

In February, 1838, Morse set out for Wash