"Tests were made between New York and Philadelphia, also between New York and Washington, using regular Western Union wires. The noises were so great that not a word could be heard with the Bell receiver when used as a transmitter between New York and Newark, New Jersey. Mr. Orton and W. K. Vanderbilt and the board of directors witnessed and took part in the tests of my transmitter. They were successful. The Western Union then put the transmitters on private lines. Mr. Theodore Puskas, of Budapest, Hungary, was the first man to suggest a telephone exchange, and soon after exchanges were established. The telephone department was put in the hands of Hamilton McK. Twombly, Vanderbilt's ablest son-in-law, who made a success of it. The Bell Company, of Boston, also started an exchange, and the fight was on, the Western Union pirating the Bell receiver and the Boston company pirating the Western Union transmitter. About this time I wanted to be taken care of. I threw out hints of this desire. Then Mr. Orton sent for me. He had learned that inventors didn't do business by the regular process, and concluded he would close it right up. He asked me how much I wanted. I had made up my mind it was certainly worth twenty-five thousand dollars if it ever amounted to anything for central station work; so that was the sum I had in mind to obstinately stick to and get. Still it had been an easy job, and only required a few months, and I felt a little shaky and uncertain. So I asked him to make me an offer. He promptly said he would give me one hundred thousand dollars. 'All right,' I said, 'it is yours on one condition, and that is that you do not pay it all at once, but pay me at the rate of six thousand dollars a year for seventeen years--the life of the patent.' He seemed only too pleased to do this, and it was closed. My ambition was about four times too large for my business capacity, and I knew that I would soon spend this money experimenting if I got it all at once; so I fixed it that I couldn't. I saved seventeen years of worry by this stroke." Edison continued his telephone work through a number of years and made and tested many other kinds of telephones, such as the water telephone, electrostatic telephone, condenser telephone, chemical telephone, various magneto telephones, inertia telephone, mercury telephone, voltaic pile telephone, musical transmitter, and the electromotograph. The principle of the electromotograph was utilized by him in more ways than one; first of all in telegraphy. Soon after the time he had concluded the telephone arrangement just mentioned a patent was issued to a Mr. Page. This patent was considered very important. It related to the use of a retractile spring to withdraw the armature lever from the magnet of a telegraph or other relay or sounder, and thus controlled the art of telegraphy, except in simple circuits.