He wrote a hand like copperplate and could "take" as fast as the best could send. And when it came to "sending," he had made the pride of Chicago cry quits.
The Western Union had need of a specially good man at Albany while the Legislature was in session, and Edison was sent there. He took the key and never looked at the clock—he cleaned up the stuff. He sat glued to his chair for ten hours, straight.
At one time, the line suddenly became blocked between Albany and New York. The manager was in distress, and after exhausting all known expedients went to Edison. The lanky youth called up a friend of his in Pittsburgh and ordered that New York give the Pittsburgh man the Albany wire. "Feel your way up the river until you find me," were the orders.
Edison started feeling his way down the river.
In twenty minutes he called to the manager, "The break is two miles below Poughkeepsie—I've ordered the section-boss at Poughkeepsie to take a repairer on his handcar and go and fix it!"
Of course, this plain telegraph-operator had no right to order out a section-boss; but nevertheless he did it. He shouldered responsibility like Tom Potter of the C., B. & Q.
Not long after the Albany experience, Edison was in New York, not looking for work as some say, but nosing around Wall Street investigating the "Laws Automatic Ticker." The machine he was looking at suddenly stopped, and this blocked all the tickers on the line. An expert was sent for, but he could not start it.
"I'll fix it," said a tall, awkward volunteer, the same which was Edison.
History is not yet clear as to whether Edison had not originally "fixed" it, and Edison so far has not confessed.
And there being no one else to start the machine, Edison was given a chance, and soon the tickers were going again. This gave him an introduction to the stock-ticker folks, and the Western Union people he already knew.