“Not at all,” he answered, using a short, jerky method, as though he were unconsciously checking himself up. “I became a newsboy, and liked the work. Made my first coup as a newsboy.”
“What was it?” I ventured.
“I bought up on ‘futures’ a thousand copies of the ‘Detroit Free Press’ containing important war news,—gained a little time on my rivals, and sold the entire batch like hot cakes. The price reached twenty-five cents a copy before the end of the route,” and he laughed. “I ran the ‘Grand Trunk Herald,’ too, at that time—a little paper I issued from the train.”
HIS FIRST EXPERIMENTS.
“When did you begin to be interested in inventions?” I questioned.
“Well,” he said, “I began to dabble in chemistry at that time. I fitted up a small laboratory on the train.”
In reference to this, Mr. Edison subsequently admitted that, during the progress of some occult experiments in this workshop, certain complications ensued in which a jolted and broken bottle of sulphuric acid attracted the attention of the conductor. He, who had been long suffering in the matter of unearthly odors, promptly ejected the young devotee and all his works. This incident would have been only amusing but for its relation to and explanation of his deafness. A box on the ear, administered by the irate conductor, caused the lasting deafness.
“What was your first work in a practical line?” I went on.
“A telegraph line between my home and another boy’s, I made with the help of an old river cable, some stove-pipe wire, and glass-bottle insulators. I had my laboratory in the cellar and studied telegraphy outside.”
“What was the first really important thing you did?”