coat. Without noticing either of us he went up to the stove and kicked
it over. The stove-pipe fell, dislocated at every joint. It was half
full of exceedingly fine soot, which floated out and filled the room
completely. This produced a momentary respite to his labors. When the
atmosphere had cleared sufficiently to see, he went around and pulled
every table away from the wall, piling them on top of the stove in the
middle of the room. Then he proceeded to pull the switchboard away from
the wall. It was held tightly by screws. He succeeded, finally, and when
it gave way he fell with the board, and striking on a table cut
himself so that he soon became covered with blood. He then went to the
battery-room and knocked all the batteries off on the floor. The nitric
acid soon began to combine with the plaster in the room below, which
was the public receiving-room for messengers and bookkeepers. The excess
acid poured through and ate up the account-books. After having finished
everything to his satisfaction, he left. I told the other operator to
do nothing. We would leave things just as they were, and wait until the
manager came. In the mean time, as I knew all the wires coming through
to the switchboard, I rigged up a temporary set of instruments so that
the New York business could be cleared up, and we also got the remainder
of the press matter. At 7 o'clock the day men began to appear. They were
told to go down-stairs and wait the coming of the manager. At 8 o'clock
he appeared, walked around, went into the battery-room, and then came to
me, saying: 'Edison, who did this?' I told him that Billy L. had come in
full of soda-water and invented the ruin before him. He walked backward
and forward, about a minute, then coming up to my table put his fist
down, and said: 'If Billy L. ever does that again, I will discharge
him.' It was needless to say that there were other operators who took
advantage of that kind of discipline, and I had many calls at night
after that, but none with such destructive effects."