Alfred Vail set to work to construct the apparatus. A room in his father's factory was set apart for this purpose. William Baxter, a bright mechanic employed in the iron shops, was chosen to assist him. As secrecy was required for the work, the room was kept locked. For several months Vail and Baxter occupied together the locked room, sharing each other's confidence and each other's elation or disappointment as the work went well or ill. On January 6, 1838, Baxter, without hat or coat, rushed to the elder Vail's residence to announce that the apparatus was completed. Mr. Vail had become discouraged. However, he went to see the trial of the apparatus. He found his son at one end of the three miles of wire that was stretched around the room, and Morse at the other. After a short explanation had been made to him, he wrote on a piece of paper, "A patient waiter is no loser." He then said to his son, "If you can send this, and Mr. Morse can read it at the other end, I shall be convinced." The message was sent and read at the other end of the wire. The apparatus was taken to Washington, where it created not only wonder but excitement. [Illustration: SAMUEL F. B. MORSE] In September, 1837, Morse filed an application for a patent on his invention. In December of the same year he failed in his effort to secure from Congress an appropriation for an experimental line which he proposed to build between Washington and Baltimore. In May, 1838, he went to Europe seeking aid. The governments there refused him funds or patents. In May, 1839, he returned to the United States and began an heroic struggle for recognition. During this period he often suffered for the barest necessities of life. Sometimes he could afford but a single meal in twenty-four hours. Finally, after repeated disappointments, when Morse himself had almost given up hope, the House of Representatives of the Twenty-seventh Congress, on the last night of its session, March 3, 1843, by a vote of ninety to eighty-two, appropriated thirty thousand dollars for building a trial line between Washington and Baltimore. After the bill had passed the House, the outlook for its passage in the Senate was not bright. One Senator who was favorable to the bill advised Morse to "give it up, return home, and think no more of it." The bill had been made the object of opposition and ridicule; one prominent official, to show his contempt for the project, proposed that half the amount asked for should be used in mesmeric experiments. Morse, believing that the Senate would defeat the appropriation, went to his lodging place to retire for the night. He found that after paying the amount he owed at the hotel, he would have less than forty cents left. Early the next morning information reached him that a little before midnight the Senate had passed the bill. Apparent failure had turned into victory; the fight was won.