He had already begun to dabble in chemistry, and had fitted up a small itinerant laboratory.

One day, as he was performing some occult experiment, the train rounded a curve, and the bottle of sulphuric acid broke.

There followed a series of unearthly odors and unnatural complications.

The conductor, who had suffered long and patiently, promptly ejected the youthful devotee, and in the process of the scientist's expulsion added a resounding box upon the ear.
Edison passed through one dramatic situation after another--always mastering it--until he attained at an early age the scientific throne of the world.

When recently asked the secret of his success, he said he had always been a total abstainer and singularly moderate in everything but work.
Daniel Manning who was President Cleveland's first campaign manager and afterwards Secretary of the Treasury, started out as a newsboy with apparently the world against him.