At half-past seven in the morning Mr. Edison starts for the laboratory. He usually walks, as the distance is short, and his physicians have ordered that he must take a certain amount of physical exercise every day. When he reaches the laboratory, he begins with a great rush, and starts men on certain phases of work which he planned the previous day. He usually has from fifty to seventy-five subjects on which he puts men to work. These subjects he prepares at home, between the time when he leaves the laboratory, half-past six, and midnight. Every afternoon Mrs. Edison calls for her husband at the laboratory, and takes him away in her carriage, and they drive about the beautiful district of the Oranges. Mrs. Edison has undertaken the task of keeping the inventor healthy. She will not permit him to neglect his meals, or to work more than she thinks is good for him. She insists that he shall leave the laboratory at a certain hour each night, and she undertakes to personally see that he does so. At times, Mr. Edison objects, but in a very mild way, to this _régime_. Not long ago, he was deeply engaged in a certain experiment, when Mrs. Edison called for him and insisted upon taking him home. After some resistance, he at last consented, saying, however, by way of a final protest, as he stepped into the carriage:— “Billy” (his pet name for Mrs. Edison), “you’re a nuisance.” Were it not, however, for the saving influence which Mrs. Edison exercises over her husband, it is doubtful if he would accomplish so much. II A “Down-east” Yankee who Dictates Peace to the Nations. HIRAM STEVENS MAXIM is a gunmaker and peacemaker, and to-day the terms are synonymous. Two armed men, although hostile, will hesitate to attack one another; each will be careful to make no false move, lest the other’s hand fly to his pistol pocket. Neither knows the other’s equipment for aggression or defense. So both will smile and smile, and continue to hate. It is often thus with nations. When I asked Mr. Maxim how one feels to be in the business of making machines of war,—machines for killing men by the brigade, so to speak, he replied:— “Men of my profession do more to keep peace on earth than all the churches of Christendom. They beg for peace,—we compel it.” Almost all famous men have two sides; the one is seen by the world, which never really sees the man at all, and is cold and glazed and more or less characterless,—being wholly intellectual. The other is the warm human side, full of points of strength and lovable weaknesses. THE MAN WHOSE GUNS WILL CLEAR A JUNGLE.