of mastering the languages he deemed necessary. Up to this time he had
never realized the enormous sacrifices that his parents had made in
promoting his education, but he now began to feel the pinch and to
grow unfamiliar with the image of Francis Joseph I. There was
considerable lag between his dispatches and the corresponding
remittance from home; and when the mathematical expression for the
value of the lag assumed the shape of an eight laid flat on its back,
Mr. Tesla became a very fair example of high thinking and plain
living, but he made up his mind to the struggle and determined to go
through depending solely on his own resources. Not desiring the fame
of a faster, he cast about for a livelihood, and through the help of
friends he secured a berth as assistant in the engineering department
of the government telegraphs. The salary was five dollars a week. This
brought him into direct contact with practical electrical work and
ideas, but it is needless to say that his means did not admit of much
experimenting. By the time he had extracted several hundred thousand
square and cube roots for the public benefit, the limitations,
financial and otherwise, of the position had become painfully
apparent, and he concluded that the best thing to do was to make a
valuable invention. He proceeded at once to make inventions, but their
value was visible only to the eye of faith, and they brought no grist
to the mill. Just at this time the telephone made its appearance in
Hungary, and the success of that great invention determined his
career, hopeless as the profession had thus far seemed to him. He
associated himself at once with telephonic work, and made various
telephonic inventions, including an operative repeater; but it did not
take him long to discover that, being so remote from the scenes of
electrical activity, he was apt to spend time on aims and results
already reached by others, and to lose touch. Longing for new
opportunities and anxious for the development of which he felt himself