supreme. There was no head to anything. At night myself and a companion
would go over to a gorgeously furnished faro-bank and get our midnight
lunch. Everything was free. There were over twenty keno-rooms running.
One of them that I visited was in a Baptist church, the man with the
wheel being in the pulpit, and the gamblers in the pews.

"While there the manager of the telegraph office was arrested for
something I never understood, and incarcerated in a military prison
about half a mile from the office. The building was in plain sight from
the office, and four stories high. He was kept strictly incommunicado.
One day, thinking he might be confined in a room facing the office, I
put my arm out of the window and kept signalling dots and dashes by the
movement of the arm. I tried this several times for two days. Finally
he noticed it, and putting his arm through the bars of the window he
established communication with me. He thus sent several messages to his
friends, and was afterward set free."

Another curious story told by Edison concerns a fellow-operator on night
duty at Chattanooga Junction, at the time he was at Memphis: "When it
was reported that Hood was marching on Nashville, one night a Jew came
into the office about 11 o'clock in great excitement, having heard the
Hood rumor. He, being a large sutler, wanted to send a message to save
his goods. The operator said it was impossible--that orders had been
given to send no private messages. Then the Jew wanted to bribe my
friend, who steadfastly refused for the reason, as he told the Jew, that
he might be court-martialled and shot. Finally the Jew got up to $800.
The operator swore him to secrecy and sent the message. Now there was
no such order about private messages, and the Jew, finding it out,
complained to Captain Van Duzer, chief of telegraphs, who investigated
the matter, and while he would not discharge the operator, laid him