As there was no vacancy
and he needed the rest of his borrowed dollar for meals, Edison found
lodging in the battery room of the Gold Indicator Company.
"It was four years after the Civil War and, besides there being much
unemployment, the fluctuations in the value of gold, as compared with
the paper currency of that day, made it necessary to have gold
'indicators' something like the tickers from the Stock Exchange to-day.
Dr. Laws, presiding officer of the Gold Exchange, had recently invented
a system of gold indicators, which were placed in brokers' offices and
operated from the Gold Exchange.
"When Edison got permission to spend the night in the battery room of
this company, there were about three hundred of these instruments
operating in offices in all directions in lower New York City.
"On the third day after his arrival, while sitting in this office, the
complicated instrument sending quotations out on all the lines made a
very loud noise, and came to a sudden stop with a crash. Within two
minutes over three hundred boys---one from every broker's office in the
street--rushed upstairs and crowded the long aisle and office where
there was hardly room for one-third that number, each yelling that a
certain broker's wire was out of order, and that it must be fixed at
once.
"It was pandemonium, and the manager got so wild that he lost all
control of himself. Edison went to the indicator, and as he had already
studied it thoroughly, he knew right where the trouble was.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111