him to jab a penful of ink on the platinum points, as there was sugar enough in it to make it sufficiently thick to hold up when the operator tried to break--the current still going through the ink, so that he could not break. "The next night about 1 A.M. this operator, on the press wire, while I was standing near a House printer studying it, pulled out a glass insulator, then used upside down as a substitute for an ink-bottle, and threw it with great violence at me, just missing my head. It would certainly have killed me if it had not missed. The cause of the trouble was that this operator was doing the best he could not to break, but, being compelled to open his key, he found he couldn't. The press matter came right along, and he could not stop it. The office boy had put the ink in a few minutes before, when the operator had turned his head during a lull. He blamed me instinctively as the cause of the trouble. Later we became good friends. He took his meals at the same 'emaciator' that I did. His main object in life seemed to be acquiring the art of throwing up wash-pitchers and catching them without breaking them. About a third of his salary was used up in paying for pitchers." One of the most amusing incidents of Edison's life in Boston, occurred through a request received at the Western Union office one day from the principal of a select school for young ladies. The principal desired to have some one sent up to the school to exhibit and describe the Morse telegraph to her "children."