day after." In like manner, it was at Louisville that Mr. Edison got an insight into the manner in which great political speeches are more frequently reported than the public suspects. "The Associated Press had a shorthand man travelling with President Johnson when he made his celebrated swing around the circle in a private train delivering hot speeches in defence of his conduct. The man engaged me to write out the notes from his reading. He came in loaded and on the verge of incoherence. We started in, but about every two minutes I would have to scratch out whole paragraphs and insert the same things said in another and better way. He would frequently change words, always to the betterment of the speech. I couldn't understand this, and when he got through, and I had copied about three columns, I asked him why those changes, if he read from notes. 'Sonny,' he said, 'if these politicians had their speeches published as they deliver them, a great many shorthand writers would be out of a job. The best shorthanders and the holders of good positions are those who can take a lot of rambling, incoherent stuff and make a rattling good speech out of it.'" Going back to Cincinnati and beginning his second term there as an operator, Edison found the office in new quarters and with greatly improved management. He was again put on night duty, much to his satisfaction. He rented a room in the top floor of an office building, bought a cot and an oil-stove, a foot lathe, and some tools. He cultivated the acquaintance of Mr. Sommers, superintendent of telegraph of the Cincinnati & Indianapolis Railroad, who gave him permission to take such scrap apparatus as he might desire, that was of no use to the company. With Sommers on one occasion he had an opportunity to indulge his always strong sense of humor. "Sommers was a very witty man," he says, "and fond of experimenting. We worked on a self-adjusting telegraph relay, which would have been very valuable if we could have got it. I soon became the possessor of a second-hand Ruhmkorff induction coil, which, although it would only give a small spark, would twist the arms and clutch the hands of a man so that he could not let go of the apparatus. One day we went down to the round-house of the Cincinnati & Indianapolis Railroad and connected up the long wash-tank in the room with the coil, one electrode being connected to earth. Above this wash-room was a flat roof. We bored a hole through the roof, and could see the men as they came in. The first man as he entered dipped his hands in the water. The floor being wet he formed a circuit, and up went his hands. He tried it the second time, with the same result. He then stood against the wall with a puzzled expression. We surmised that he was waiting for somebody else to come in, which occurred shortly after--with the same result. Then they went out, and the place was soon crowded, and there was considerable excitement. Various theories