The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-08-18

Il U hDA Y AO0C51 1S ]! don't know even now what was in it. A check for forty thousand dollars was handed me and I went to the bank as fast as my feet would carry me.
 Tt vas the first time I was ever in- side of bank. l got in line and when my turn came I handed in my check Of course I had not indersed it.
 '"The teller looked at it, then pushed it back to me and roared out some thing which I could not understand, being partly deaf. My heart sand and my legs trembled. handed the check back to him, but again he pushed it back with the same unintelligtble ex- plosion of words.
 That settled it. l went out or the bank feeling miserable. was the vic- tim oi another Wall street skin game I never felt worse in my life.
 T went around to the brother of the treasurer who had drawn the check and said: I'm skinned, all right
 When I told him my story he burst out laughing, and when he went into the treasurer's office to explain mat ters there was loud roar Of laughter at my expense. They sent somebody to the bank with me, and the bank off, licials thought it so great joke that they played trick on me by paying the whole forty thousand dollars in ten, twenty and fifty dollar bills.
 Tt made an enormous pile Of mon ey. I stuffed the bills in my inside pockets, my trousers pockets and out side pocket my trousers pockets and every could put them. Then l Wostarted for my hime in Newark. wouldn't sit on a seat with anybody on the train nor let anybody approach me, When got to my rom l couldnt sleep for fear of being robbed.
 So the next day took it back to Gen. Lefferts and told him l didn't know where to keep it. He had 1t know where to keep it. He had 1t placed in a bank to my credit and that was my first bank account. With that money opened a new shop and worked out new apparatus.
 My automatic telegraph, which handled a thousand words a minute be tween New York and Washington, was brought out by Jay Gould and the Eastern Union Company It is in liti- gation yet.
 "Then the quadruplex was installed. I sold that to Jay Gould and the Vest ern Union Company for s9O,O0O. The next invention was the mfmeeograph, a copying machine.
 When Bell got out his telephone the transmitter and receiver were one. Professor Orton of the Western Union company, asked me to do something tc make the telephone a commercial sue cess.
 "I tackled it and got up the present transmltter The Western Union com pany eventually made millions of dol lars out of 1t. I got hundred thou sand dollars for 1t.
 "At last President Orton sent formt land said; Young man, how much dC lyou want in full payment for all the Inventions you have given the West lern Union company?'
 T had forty thousand dollars in my mind, but my tongue wouldn't move II hadn't the nerve to name such { lsum.
 Make me an offer ventured.
 How would a hundred thousand dollars seem to you? he asked.
 T almost fell over. It made me dig zy, but I kept my face and answered with as much coolness as could mus ter, that the offer appeared to be fai lone. Then another thought occurred to me, and said that I would accep Ia hundred thousand dollars if the com pany would keep it and pay me in sev enteen yearly instalments. a
 T knew that if got it all at once would soon go in experiments. It too me seventeen years to get that money and it was one of the wisest things ever did. By putting check on m extravaganza l always had funds"
 MT. Edisons deafness Is directly du to his early love of science. When h was newsboy on the train he used t carry on experiments at leisure mo ments.
 One day a bottle of phosphorus be came uncorked and set the car on firt The indignant conductor boxed tn ears of the youthful scientist an
 threw the boy and his paraphernali off the traln.It was this box on tn ears which caused the deafness whic has troubled him ever since.