Several days later he came round
again and tried to prove to me that we had made seven thousand dollars
in the three months!'
"This was so disconcerting that the inventor decided to change
bookkeepers, but he never 'counted his chickens before they were
hatched.' In other words, he did not believe that he had made anything
till he had paid all his bills and had his money safe in the bank.
"Mr. Edison once made the remark that when Jay Gould got possession of
the Western Union Telegraph Company, no further progress in telegraphy
was possible, because Gould took no pride in building up. All he cared
for was money, only money.
"The opposite was true of Edison. While he had decided to invent only
that which was of commercial value, it was not on account of the money
but because that which millions of people will buy is of the greatest
value to the world.
"After he stopped telegraphing, Edison turned his mind to many
inventions. It is not generally known that the first successful, widely
sold typewriter was perfected by him.
"This typewriter proved a difficult thing to make commercial. The
alignment of the letters was very bad. One letter would be one-sixteenth
of an inch above the others, and all the letters wanted to wander out of
line. He worked on it till the machine gave fair results. The typewriter
he got into commercial shape is now known as the Remington.
"It is not hard to understand that Mr.
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