Edison was then handed the first check he had ever received, one for forty thousand dollars. He went down to the bank and passed the check in to the paying teller, who handed it back to him with some remarks which in his deafness he did not hear. Fancying for a moment he had been cheated, Edison went outside "to let the cold sweat evaporate."
He went back to the General, who, with his secretary, had a good laugh over the matter, and told him the check must be endorsed, and sent with him a clerk to identify him.
The ceremony of identification performed with the paying teller, who was quite merry over the incident, Edison was given the amount in bundles of small bills "until there certainly seemed to be one cubic foot." Unaware that he was the victim of a practical joke, Edison proceeded gravely to stow away the money in his overcoat pockets and all his other pockets. He then went to Newark and sat up all night with the money for fear it might be stolen. Once more he sought help next morning, when the General laughed heartily, and, telling the clerk that the joke must not be carried any further, enabled him to deposit the currency in the bank and open an account--his first bank account.
Thus in a very brief time Edison had passed from poverty to independence. Not only that, but he had made a deep impression as to his originality and ability on important people, and had brought out valuable inventions. Thus he lifted himself at one hound out of the ranks and away from the drudgery of the key.
Many young men of twenty-two would have been so dazzled by coming suddenly into possession of forty thousand dollars after a period of poverty, struggle, and hard work, that their main ideas would have been of recreation and pleasure. Not so with Edison, however. Naturally enterprising and a pioneer, this money meant to him nothing but means to an end.
He bought some machinery and opened a small shop and got work for it. Very quickly he was compelled to move to larger quarters. Nos. 10 and 12 Ward Street, Newark, New Jersey. He secured large orders from General Lefferts to build stock tickers, and employed fifty men.
As business increased he put on a night force, and was his own foreman in both shifts. Half an hour of sleep three or four times in the twenty-four hours was all he needed. His force increased to one hundred and fifty men, and, besides superintending all the work day and night, he was constantly making new inventions in the lines on which he was then working, which was chiefly stock tickers.