Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1898 — THE GREATEST INVENTOR. [ARTICLE]

THE GREATEST INVENTOR.

A Drummer Telia a Story About the Wizard of Menlo Park. A Blue line train was making a blue I streak through the New Jersey air,with the cowcatcher of the locomotive point- 1 ed toward New York city, and a drum-' mer was talking right along ahead of it as easy as the bird flies, says the New York Sun. “I want to say to you, gentlemen,”, he was, saying, “that. Thomas Edison is the greatest inventor in the world, not only in the quantity of his inventions, but in the quality of them, and every new thing he turns out he gets a patent on it before it is dry. Sensible 1 man is Tom, and a great snap is a pat-j ent when the monopoly in it is yours,! gentlemen. I know what Fm talking; about, for I had one once that was a 100- j 100, only it wasn’t big enough. But j I’m getting away from my tale, as the dog remarked when he barely got his hind legs from under the wheels. I was in Edison’s town the other day and heard a new story on him. New to me, anyhow. Man over there that I sell goods to. and won’t lie except when the fishing season is on, told me, as an illustration of how absorbed Edison is in his business, that one day Mrs. Edison came to her husband in great glee and announced that the baby had a tooth.’ “ ‘Very well, my dear.” replied her husband, never stoppings minute from his work. ‘I haven’t got time to bother with your affairs. You Just run along and get a patent on it and have it charged to my account.* ”