By a lucky chance Edison was on the spot to repair it, which he did successfully, and this led to his appointment as superintendent at a salary of three hundred dollars a month.

When a change in the ownership of the company threw him out of the position he formed, with Franklin L.Pope, the partnership of Pope, Edison, and Company, the first firm of electrical engineers in the United States.
Not long afterwards Edison brought out the invention which set him on the high road to great achievement.

This was the improved stock ticker, for which the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company paid him forty thousand dollars.

It was much more than he had expected.

"I had made up my mind," he says, "that, taking into consideration the time and killing pace I was working at, I should be entitled to $5000, but could get along with $3000." The money, of course, was paid by check.