Mr. Walker was an observant man, who has since that time installed a
number of waterworks systems and obtained several patents of his own. He
describes the boy of sixteen as engrossed intensely in his experiments
and scientific reading, and somewhat indifferent, for this reason, to
his duties as operator. This office was not particularly busy, taking
from $50 to $75 a month, but even the messages taken in would remain
unsent on the hook while Edison was in the cellar below trying to solve
some chemical problem. The manager would see him studying sometimes
an article in such a paper as the Scientific American, and then
disappearing to buy a few sundries for experiments. Returning from the
drug store with his chemicals, he would not be seen again until required
by his duties, or until he had found out for himself, if possible, in
this offhand manner, whether what he had read was correct or not. When
he had completed his experiment all interest in it was lost, and the
jars and wires would be left to any fate that might befall them. In like
manner Edison would make free use of the watchmaker's tools that lay
on the little table in the front window, and would take the wire pliers
there without much thought as to their value as distinguished from a
lineman's tools. The one idea was to do quickly what he wanted to do;
and the same swift, almost headlong trial of anything that comes to
hand, while the fervor of a new experiment is felt, has been noted
at all stages of the inventor's career. One is reminded of Palissy's
recklessness, when in his efforts to make the enamel melt on his pottery
he used the very furniture of his home for firewood.

Mr. Edison remarks the fact that there was very little difference
between the telegraph of that time and of to-day, except the general use
of the old Morse register with the dots and dashes recorded by indenting
paper strips that could be read and checked later at leisure if