Ted and the Telephone Page 11

  CHAPTER X

  WHAT CAME AFTERWARD

  "Was that first telephone like ours?" inquired Ted later as, theirlunch finished, they sat idly looking out at the river.

  "Not wholly. Time has improved the first crude instrument," Mr. Hazenreplied. "The initial principle of the telephone, however, has nevervaried from Mr. Bell's primary idea. Before young Watson tumbled intobed on that epoch-making night, he had finished the instrument Bell hadasked him to have ready, every part of it being made by the eagerassistant who probably only faintly realized the mammoth importance ofhis task. Yet whether he realized it or not, he had caught a sufficientdegree of the inventor's excitement to urge him forward. Over one ofthe receivers, as Mr. Bell directed, he mounted a small drumhead ofgoldbeater's skin, joined the center of it to the free end of thereceiver spring, and arranged a mouthpiece to talk into. The plan wasto force the steel spring to answer the vibrations of the voice and atthe same time generate a current of electricity that should vary inintensity just as the air varies in density during the utterance ofspeech sounds. Not only did Watson make this instrument as specified,but in his interest he went even farther, and as the rooms in the loftseemed too near together, the tireless young man ran a special wirefrom the attic down the two flights of stairs to the ground floor ofthe shop and ended it near his workbench at the rear of the building,thus constructing the first telephone line in history.

  "Then the next day Mr. Bell came to test out his invention and, as youcan imagine, there was great excitement."

  "I hope it worked," put in Laurie.

  "It worked all right although at this early stage of the game it washardly to be expected that the instrument produced was perfect.Nevertheless, the demonstration proved that the principle behind it wassound and that was all Mr. Bell really wanted to make sure of. Watson,as it chanced, got far more out of this initial performance than did Mr.Bell himself for because of the inventor's practical work in phonics thevibrations of his voice carried more successfully than did those of theassistant. Yet the youthful Watson was not without his compensations.Nature had blessed him with unusually acute hearing and as a result hecould catch Bell's tones perfectly as they came over the wire and couldalmost distinguish his words; but shout as he would, poor Mr. Bell couldnot hear _him_. This dilemma nevertheless discouraged neither of themfor Watson had plenty of energy and was quite willing to leap up the twoflights of stairs and repeat what he had heard; and this report greatlyreassured Mr. Bell, who outlined a list of other improvements foranother telephone that should be ready on the following day."

  "I suppose they kept remodelling the telephones all the time afterthat, didn't they?" inquired Ted.

  "You may be sure they did," was Mr. Hazen's response. "The harmonictelegraph was entirely sidetracked and the interest of both men turnedinto this newer channel. Mr. Bell, in the meantime, was giving less andless energy to his teaching and more and more to his inventing. Beforemany days the two could talk back and forth and hear one another'svoices without difficulty, although ten full months of hard work wasnecessary before they were able to understand what was said. It was notuntil after this long stretch of patient toil that Watson unmistakablyheard Mr. Bell say one day, '_Mr. Watson, please come here, I wantyou._' The message was a very ordinary, untheatrical one for a momentso significant but neither of the enthusiasts heeded that. Thethrilling fact was that the words had come clear-cut over the wire."

  "Gee!" broke in Laurie.

  "It certainly must have been a dramatic moment," Mr. Hazen agreed. "Mr.Bell, now convinced beyond all doubt of the value of his idea, hiredtwo rooms at a cheap boarding-house situated at Number 5 Exeter Place,Boston. In one of these he slept and in the other he equipped alaboratory. Watson connected these rooms by a wire and afterward allMr. Bell's experimenting was done here instead of at the Williams'sshop. It was at the Exeter Place rooms that this first wonderfulmessage came to Watson's ears. From this period on the telephone tookrapid strides forward. By the summer of 1876, it had been improveduntil a simple sentence was understandable if carefully repeated threeor four times."

  "Repeated three or four times!" gasped Laurie in dismay.

  The tutor smiled at the boy's incredulousness.

  "You forget we are not dealing with a finished product," said hegently. "I am a little afraid you would have been less patient with theimperfections of an infant invention than were Bell and Watson."

  "I know I should," was the honest retort.

  "The telephone was a very delicate instrument to perfect," explainedMr. Hazen. "Always remember that. An inventor must not only be a manwho has unshaken faith in his idea but he must also have the courage tocling stubbornly to his belief through every sort of mechanicalvicissitude. This Mr. Bell did. June of 1876 was the year of the greatCentennial at Philadelphia, the year that marked the first century ofour country's progress. As the exhibition was to be one symbolic of ournational development in every line, Mr. Bell decided to show histelephone there; to this end he set Watson, who was still at theWilliams's shop, to making exhibition telephones of the two varietiesthey had thus far worked out."

  "I'll bet Watson was almighty proud of his job," Ted interrupted.

  "I fancy he was and certainly he had a right to be," answered Mr.Hazen. "I have always been glad, too, that it fell to his lot to havethis honor; for he had worked long and faithfully, and if there wereglory to be had, he should share it. To his unflagging zeal andintelligence Mr. Bell owed a great deal. Few men could sowhole-heartedly have effaced their own personality and thrownthemselves with such zest into the success of another as did ThomasWatson."

  The tutor paused.

  "Up to this time," he presently went on, "the telephones used by Belland Watson in their experiments had been very crude affairs; but thosedesigned for the Centennial were glorified objects. Watson says thatyou could see your face in them. The Williams's shop outdid itself andmore splendid instruments never went forth from its doors. You cantherefore imagine Watson's chagrin when, after highly commending Mr.Bell's invention, Sir William Thompson added, '_This, perhaps, greatestmarvel hitherto achieved by electric telegraph has been obtained byappliances of quite a homespun and rudimentary character._'"

  Both Ted and Laurie joined in the laughter of the tutor.

  "And now the telephone was actually launched?" Ted asked.

  "Well, it was not really in clear waters," Mr. Hazen replied, with adubious shrug of his shoulders, "but at least there was no furtherquestion as to which of his schemes Mr. Bell should perfect. Both Mr.Hubbard and Mr. Saunders, who were assisting him financially, agreedthat for the present it must be the telephone; and recognizing thevalue of Watson's services, they offered him an interest in Mr. Bell'spatents if he would give up his work at Williams's shop and put in allhis time on this device. Nevertheless they did not entirely abandon theharmonic telegraph for Bell's success with the other invention had onlyserved to strengthen their confidence in his ability and genius. It wasalso decided that Mr. Bell should move from Salem to Boston, take anadditional room at the Exeter Place house (which would give him theentire floor where his laboratory was), and unhampered by furtherteaching plunge into the inventive career for which heaven had sorichly endowed him and which he loved with all his heart. You canpicture to yourselves the joy these decisions gave him and theeagerness with which he and Watson took up their labors together.

  "They made telephones of every imaginable size in their attempts tofind out whether there was anything that would work more satisfactorilythan the type they now had. But in spite of their many experiments theycame back to the kind of instrument with which they had started,discovering nothing that was superior to their original plan. Exceptthat they compelled the transmitter to do double duty and act also as areceiver, the telephone that emerged from these many tests waspractically similar in principle to the one of to-day."

  "Had they made any long-distance trials up to this time?" questionedLaurie.

  "No," Mr. Hazen admitted. "They h
ad lacked opportunity to make suchtests since no great span of wires was accessible to them. But onOctober 9, 1876, the Walworth Manufacturing Company gave thempermission to try out their device on the Company's private telegraphline that ran from Boston to Cambridge. The distance to be sure wasonly two miles but it might as well have been two thousand so far asthe excitement of the two workers went. Their baby had never been outof doors. Now at last it was to take the air! Fancy how thrilling theprospect was! As the wire over which they were to make the experimentwas in use during the day, they were forced to wait until the plant wasclosed for the night. Then Watson, with his tools and his telephoneunder his arm, went to the Cambridge office where he impatientlylistened for Mr. Bell's signal to come over the Morse sounder. When hehad heard this and thereby made certain that Bell was at the other endof the line, he cut out the sounder, connected the telephone he hadbrought with him, and put his ear to the transmitter."

  The hut was so still one could almost hear the breathing of the lads,who were listening intently.

  "Go on!" Laurie said quickly. "Tell us what happened."

  "_Nothing happened!_" answered the tutor. "Watson listened but therewas not a sound."

  "Great Scott!"

  "The poor assistant was aghast," went on Mr. Hazen. "He was at acomplete loss to understand what was the matter. Could it be that thecontrivance which worked so promisingly in the Boston rooms would notwork under these other conditions? Perhaps an electric current was toodelicate a thing to carry sound very far. Or was it that the force ofthe vibration filtered off at each insulator along the line until itbecame too feeble to be heard? All these possibilities flashed intoWatson's mind while at his post two miles away from Mr. Bell he struggledto readjust the instrument. Then suddenly an inspiration came to hisalert brain. Might there not be another Morse sounder somewhere about?If there were, that would account for the whole difficulty. Springingup, he began to search the room and after following the wires, sureenough, he traced them to a relay with a high resistance coil in thecircuit. Feverishly he cut this out and rushed back to his telephone.Plainly over the wire came Bell's voice, '_Ahoy! Ahoy!_' For a fewseconds both of them were too delighted to say much of anything else.Then they sobered down and began this first long-distance conversation.Now one of the objections Mr. Bell had constantly been forced to meetfrom the skeptical public was that while the telegraph deliveredmessages that were of unchallenged accuracy telephone conversationswere liable to errors of misunderstanding. One could not therefore relyso completely on the trustworthiness of the latter as on that of theformer. To refute this charge Mr. Bell had insisted that both he andWatson carefully write out whatever they heard that the two recordsmight afterward be compared and verified. '_That is_,' Mr. Bell hadadded with the flicker of a smile, '_if we succeed in talking at all_!'Well, they did succeed, as you have heard. At first they held only astilted dialogue and conscientiously jotted it down; but afterwardtheir exuberance got the better of them and in sheer joy they chatteredaway like magpies until long past midnight. Then, loath to destroy theconnection, Watson detached his telephone, replaced the Company'swires, and set out for Boston. In the meantime Mr. Bell, who hadpreviously made an arrangement with the _Boston Advertiser_ to publishon the following morning an account of the experiment, together withthe recorded conversations, had gone to the newspaper office to carryhis material to the press. Hence he was not at the Exeter Place roomswhen the jubilant Watson arrived. But the early morning hour did notdaunt the young electrician; and when, after some delay, Mr. Bell camein, the two men rushed toward one another and regardless of everythingelse executed what Mr. Watson has since characterized as a _war dance_.Certainly they were quite justified in their rejoicings and perhaps iftheir landlady had understood the cause of their exultations she mighthave joined in the dance herself. Unluckily she had only a scantsympathy with inventive genius and since the victory celebration notonly aroused her, but also wakened most of her boarders from theirslumbers, her ire was great and the next morning she informed the twomen that if they could not be more quiet at night they would have toleave her house."

  An appreciative chuckle came from the listeners.

  "If she had known what she was sheltering, I suppose she would havebeen proud as a peacock and promptly told all her neighbors," grinnedTed.

  "Undoubtedly! But she did not know, poor soul!" returned Mr. Hazen.

  "After this Mr. Bell and Mr. Watson must have shot ahead by leaps andbounds," commented Laurie.

  "There is no denying that that two-mile test did give them both courageand assurance," responded the tutor. "They got chances to try out theinvention on longer telegraph wires; and in spite of the fact that nosuch thing as hard-drawn copper wire was in existence they managed toget results even over rusty wires with their unsoldered joinings.Through such experiments an increasingly wider circle of outsidepersons heard of the telephone and the marvel began to attract greaterattention. Mr. Bell's modest little laboratory became the mecca ofscientists and visitors of every imaginable type. Moses G. Farmer, wellknown in the electrical world, came to view the wonder and confessed toMr. Bell that more than once he had lingered on the threshold of thesame mighty discovery but had never been able to step across it intosuccess. It amused both Mr. Bell and Mr. Watson to see how embarrassedpersons were when allowed to talk over the wire. Standing up andspeaking into a box has long since become too much a matter of coursewith us to appear ridiculous; but those experiencing the novelty forthe first time were so overwhelmed by self-consciousness that theycould think of nothing to say. One day when Mr. Watson called from hisend of the line, 'How do you do?' a dignified lawyer who was trying theinstrument answered with a foolish giggle, 'Rig-a-jig-jig and away wego!' The psychological reaction was too much for many a well-poisedindividual and I do not wonder it was, do you?"

  "It must have been almost as good as a vaudeville show to watch thepeople," commented Ted.

  "Better! Lots better!" echoed Laurie.

  "In April, 1877, the first out-of-door telephone line running on itsown private wires was installed in the shop of Charles Williams atNumber 109 Court Street and carried from there out to his house atSomerville. Quite a little ceremony marked the event. Both Mr. Bell andMr. Watson attended the christening and the papers chronicled thecircumstance in bold headlines the following day. Immediately patronswho wanted telephones began to pop up right and left like so manymushrooms. But alas, where was the money to come from that shouldenable Mr. Bell and his associates to branch out and grasp theopportunities that now beckoned them? The inventor's own resources wereat a low ebb; Watson, like many another young man, had more brains thanfortune; and neither Mr. Hubbard nor Mr. Saunders felt they couldprovide the necessary capital. Already the Western Union had refusedMr. Hubbard's offer to sell all Mr. Bell's patents for one hundredthousand dollars, the Company feeling that the price asked was much toohigh. Two years later, however, they would willingly have paidtwenty-five million dollars for the privilege they had so summarilyscorned. What was to be done? Money must be secured for without it allfurther progress was at a standstill. Was success to be sacrificed nowthat the goal was well within sight? And must the telephone be shutaway from the public and never take its place of service in the greatworld? Why, if a thing was not to be used it might almost as well neverhave been invented! The spirits of the telephone pioneers sank lowerand lower. The only way to raise money seemed to be to sell thetelephone instruments outright and this Mr. Bell, who desired simply tolease them, was unwilling to do. Then an avenue of escape from thisdilemma presented itself to him."

  "What was it?" asked Laurie.

  "He would give lectures, accompanying them with practicaldemonstrations of the telephone. This would bring in money and banishfor a time, at least, the possibility of having to sell instead of renttelephones. The plan succeeded admirably. The first lecture was givenat Salem where, because of Mr. Bell's previous residence and manyfriends, a large audience packed the hall. Then Boston desired to knowmore of the
invention and an appeal for a lecture signed by Longfellow,Oliver Wendell Holmes, and other distinguished citizens was forwardedto Mr. Bell. The Boston lectures were followed by others in New York,Providence, and the principal cities throughout New England."

  "It seems a shame Mr. Bell should have had to take his time to do that,doesn't it?" mused Ted. "How did they manage the lectures?"

  "The lectures had a checkered existence," smiled Mr. Hazen. "Many veryamusing incidents centered about them. Were I to talk until doomsday Icould not begin to tell you the multitudinous adventures Mr. Bell andMr. Watson had during their platform career; for although Mr. Watsonwas never really before the footlights as Mr. Bell was, he was anindispensable part of the show,--the power behind the scenes, the manat the other end of the wire, who furnished the lecture hall with suchstunts as would not only convince an audience but also entertain them.It was a dull, thankless position, perhaps, to be so far removed fromthe excitement and glamor, to be always playing or singing into alittle wooden box and never catching a glimpse of the fun that wasgoing on at the other end of the line; but since Mr. Watson was arather shy person it is possible he was quite as well pleased. Afterall, it was Mr. Bell whom everybody wanted to see and of course Mr.Watson understood this. Therefore he was quite content to act hismodest role and not only gather together at his end of the wire cornetsoloists, electric organs, brass bands, or whatever startling noveltiesthe occasion demanded, but talk or sing himself. The shyest of men cansometimes out-Herod Herod if not obliged to face their listeners inperson. As Watson had spoken so much over the telephone, he wasthoroughly accustomed to it and played the parts assigned him farbetter than more gifted but less practically trained soloists did. Italways amused him intensely after he had bellowed _Pull for the Shore_,_Hold the Fort_ or _Yankee Doodle_ into the transmitter to hear theapplause that followed his efforts. Probably singing before a largecompany was about the last thing Tom Watson expected his electricalcareer would lead him into. Had he been told that such a fate awaitedhim, he would doubtless have jeered at the prophecy. But here he was,singing away with all his lung power, before a great hall full ofpeople and not minding it in the least; nay, I rather think he may haveenjoyed it. Once, desiring to give a finer touch than usual to theentertainment, Mr. Bell hired a professional singer; but this soloisthad never used a telephone and although he possessed the art of singinghe was not able to get it across the wire. No one in the lecture hallcould hear him. Mr. Bell promptly summoned Watson (who was doubtlesscongratulating himself on being off duty) to render _Hold the Fort_in his customary lusty fashion. After this Mr. Watson became the starsoloist and no more singers were engaged."

  A ripple of amusement passed over the faces of the lads listening.

  "Ironically enough, as Mr. Watson's work kept him always in thebackground furnishing the features of these entertainments, he neverhimself heard Mr. Bell lecture. He says, however, that the greatinventor was a very polished, magnetic speaker who never failed tosecure and hold the attention of his hearers. Of course, every venturehas its trials and these lecture tours were no exception to the generalrule. Once, for example, the Northern Lights were responsible fordemoralizing the current and spoiling a telephone demonstration atLawrence; and although both Watson and a cornetist strained their lungsto bursting, neither of them could be heard at the hall. Then thesparks began to play over the wires and the show had to be called off.Nevertheless such disasters occurred seldom, and for the most part theperformances went smoothly, the people were delighted, and Mr. Bellincreased not only his fame but his fortune."

  Mr. Hazen stopped a moment.

  "You must not for an instant suppose," he resumed presently, "that thetelephone was a perfected product. Transmitters of sufficient delicacyto do away with shouting and screaming had not yet made theirappearance and in consequence when one telephoned all the world knewit; it was not until the Blake transmitter came into use that atelephone conversation could be to any extent confidential. In itspresent state, the longer the range the more lung power was demanded;and probably had not this been the condition, people would have shoutedanyway, simply from instinct. Even with our own delicately adjustedinstruments we are prone to forget and commit this folly. But in theearly days one was forced to uplift his voice at the telephone and ifhe had no voice to uplift woe betide his telephoning. And apropos ofthis matter, I recall reading that once, when Mr. Bell was to lecturein New York, he thought what a drawing card it would be if he couldhave his music and other features of entertainment come from Boston.Therefore he arranged to use the wires of the Atlantic and PacificTelegraph Company and to this end he and Watson planned a dressrehearsal at midnight in order to try out the inspiration. Now itchanced that the same inflexible landlady ruled at Number 5 ExeterPlace, and remembering his former experience, Mr. Watson felt somethingmust be done to stifle the shouting he foresaw he would be compelled todo at that nocturnal hour. So he gathered together all the blankets androlled them into a sort of cone and to the small end of this he tiedhis telephone. Then he crept into this stuffy, breathless shelter, theancestor of our sound-proof telephone booth, and for nearly three hoursshouted to Mr. Bell in New York--or tried to. But the experiment wasnot a success. He could be heard, it is true, but not distinctly enoughto risk such an unsatisfactory demonstration before an uninitiatedaudience. Hence the scheme was abandoned and Mr. Watson scrambled histhings together and betook himself to a point nearer the center ofaction."

  "It must all have been great fun, mustn't it?" said Lauriethoughtfully.

  "Great fun, no doubt, but very hard work," was the tutor's answer."Many a long, discouraging hour was yet to follow before the telephonebecame a factor in the everyday world. Yet each step of the climb tosuccess had its sunlight as well as its shadow, its humor as well asits pathos; and it was fortunate both men appreciated this fact for itfloated them over many a rough sea. Man can spare almost any otherattribute better than his sense of humor. Without this touchstone he isill equipped to battle with life," concluded Mr. Hazen whimsically.