CHAPTER XIV.
OUR TRIP THROUGH INDIANA—HOW I FOOLED A TELEGRAPH OPERATOR—THE OLD LANDLORD SENDS RECIPE FOR CREAM BISCUIT—OUR RETURN TO OHIO—BECOMING AGENTS FOR A NEW PATENT—OUR VALISE STOLEN—RETURN TO FT. WAYNE—WAITING SIX WEEKS FOR PATENT-RIGHT PAPERS—BUSTED—STAVING OFF THE WASHERWOMAN FOR FIVE WEEKS—"THE KID" AND 'DE EXCHANGE ACT'—HOW THE LAUNDRY WOMAN GOT EVEN WITH US—THE LANDLORD ON THE BORROW—HOW WE BORROWED OF HIM—REPLENISHING OUR WARDROBE—PAYING UP THE HOTEL BILL.
We then made a trip through Indiana, and met with virtually no success at all; and very soon paid out almost our last dollar for actual expenses.
One day we had occasion to go to a small station to take the cars for Fort Wayne, when the telegraph operator left his office for a few minutes to go after the mail.
I stepped to the instrument, called the Toledo office, and sent a message to our late landlord at Napoleon, as follows:
"Send to my partner and me two dozen cream biscuit to Fort Wayne, express prepaid. We need them."
After checking the message dead head, signed my name, and returned to the waiting-room.
When the operator returned, the Toledo office, whose duty it was to transfer the message to Napoleon, called him up and asked who Johnston was; and wanted to know further, why his message should be dead-headed. The operator answered that he knew nothing about it, and didn't think it was his business to inquire into other people's affairs. They told him he had better wake up and know what he was doing; and said it was his duty to collect pay for messages, and not send them for nothing. I listened attentively to what passed between them; but finally our side won by his saying that he wanted them to understand he was running that office himself, and needed no advice.