Edison came first to New York in 1868, with his early stock printer, which he tried unsuccessfully to sell. He went back to Boston, and, quite undismayed, got up a duplex telegraph. "Toward the end of my stay in Boston," he says, "I obtained a loan of money, amounting to eight hundred dollars, to build up a peculiar kind of duplex telegraph for sending two messages over a single wire simultaneously. The apparatus was built, and I left the Western Union employ and went to Rochester, New York, to test the apparatus on the lines of the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph between that city and New York. But the assistant at the other end could not be made to understand anything, notwithstanding I had written out a very minute description of just what to do. After trying for a week I gave it up and returned to New York with but a few cents in my pocket." No one could have been in direr poverty than Edison when the steamboat landed him in New York in 1869. He was in debt, and his few belongings in books and instruments had to be left behind. He was not far from starving. After leaving the boat his first thought was for breakfast; but he was without money to obtain it. He walked the streets, and in passing a wholesale tea house saw a man "tasting" tea, so he went in and asked the "taster" if he might have some tea. His request was granted, and this was his first breakfast in New York. He knew a telegraph operator in the city, and in the course of the day succeeded in finding him, but he also was out of work, and the best he could do was to lend Edison one dollar. By this time Edison was extremely hungry, and he gave most serious consideration as to what he should buy in the way of food that would be most satisfying. He finally decided upon apple dumplings and coffee, which he obtained at Smith & McNeil's restaurant. He says he never ate anything more appetizing. He applied to the Western Union Company for a position as operator, but as there was no immediate vacancy he was obliged to wait for an opening. Having only the remainder of the borrowed dollar, he did not want to spend it for lodging, so he got permission to stay overnight in the battery-room of the Gold Indicator Company. Thus he kept what little change he had to buy food.