At that time a message sent from New Orleans to New York had to be taken at Memphis, re-telegraphed to Louisville, taken down again by the operator there, and telegraphed to another centre, and so on till it reached New York. Time was lost and the chance of error was increased. Edison was the first to connect New Orleans and New York directly. It was just after the war. He perfected an automatic repeater which was put on at Memphis and did its work perfectly. The manager of the office there, one Johnson, had a relative who was also busy on the same problem, but Edison solved it ahead of him and received complimentary notices from the local papers. He was discharged without cause. He got a pass as far as Decatur on his way home, but had to walk from there to Nashville, a hundred and fifty miles. From there he got a pass to Louisville, where he arrived during a sharp snow-storm, clad in a linen duster. It was soon after this that Edison, already a swift and competent operator when he devoted himself to practical work, received promise of employment in the Boston office. The weather was quite cold and his peculiar dress, topped with a slouchy broad-brimmed hat, made something of a sensation. But Edison then cared as little for dress as he does to-day. So one raw wet day a tall man with a limp, wet duster clinging to his legs, stalked into the superintendent's room, and said: "Here I am." The superintendent eyed him from head to foot, and said: "Who are you?" "Tom Edison." "And who on earth might Tom Edison be?" The young man explained that he had been ordered to report for duty at the Boston office, and was finally told to sit down in the operating-room, where his advent created much merriment. The operators guyed him loudly enough for him to hear. He didn't care. A few moments later a New York sender noted for his swiftness called up the Boston office. There was no one at liberty. "Well," said the office chief, "let that new fellow try him." Edison sat down, and for four hours and a half wrote out messages in his peculiarly clear round hand, stuck a date and number on them and threw them on the floor for the office boy to pick up. The time he took in numbering and dating the sheets were the only seconds he was not writing out transmitted words. Faster and faster ticked the instrument, and faster and faster went Edison's fingers, until the rapidity with which the messages came tumbling on the floor attracted the attention of the other operators, who, when their work was done, gathered around to witness the spectacle. At the close of the four and a half hours' work there flashed from New York the salutation: "Hello!" "Hello yourself," ticked back Edison. "Who the devil are you?" rattled into the Boston office. "Tom Edison."