Ted and the Telephone Read online

  CHAPTER XI

  THE REST OF THE STORY

  "I should think," commented Laurie one day, when Ted and Mr. Hazen weresitting in his room, "that Mr. Bell's landlady would have fussed no endto have his telephone ringing all the time."

  "My dear boy, you do not for an instant suppose that the telephones ofthat period had bells, do you?" replied Mr. Hazen with amusement. "No,indeed! There was no method for signaling. Unless two persons agreed totalk at a specified hour of the day or night and timed theirconversation by the clock, or else had recourse to the Morse code,there was no satisfactory way they could call one another. This did notgreatly matter when you recollect how few telephones there were inexistence. Mr. Williams used to summon a listener by tapping on themetal diaphragm of the instrument with his pencil, a practice none toobeneficial to the transmitter; nor was the resulting sound powerfulenough to reach any one who was not close at hand. Furthermore, personscould not stand and hold their telephones and wait until they couldarouse the party at the other end of the line for a telephone weighedalmost ten pounds and----"

  "Ten pounds!" repeated Ted in consternation.

  Mr. Hazen nodded.

  "Yes," answered he, "the early telephones were heavy, cumbersomeobjects and not at all like the trim, compact instruments we haveto-day. In fact, they were quite similar to the top of a sewing-machinebox, only, perhaps, they were a trifle smaller. You can understand thatone would not care to carry on a very long conversation if he must inthe meantime stand and hold in his arms a ten-pound object about teninches long, six inches wide, and six inches high."

  "I should say not!" Laurie returned. "It must have acted as a finecheck, though, on people who just wanted to gabble."

  Both Ted and the tutor laughed.

  "Of course telephone owners could not go on that way," Ted said, afterthe merriment had subsided. "What did Mr. Bell do about it?"

  "The initial step for betterment was not taken by Mr. Bell but by Mr.Watson," Mr. Hazen responded. "He rigged a little hammer inside the boxand afterwards put a button on the outside. This _thumper_ was thefirst calling device ever in use. Later on, however, the assistant felthe could improve on this method and he adapted the buzzer of theharmonic telegraph to the telephone; this proved to be a distinctadvance over the more primitive _thumper_ but nevertheless he wasnot satisfied with it as a signaling apparatus. So he searched fartherstill, and with the aid of one of the shabby little books onelectricity that he had purchased for a quarter from Williams's tinyshowcase, he evolved the magneto-electric call bell such as we useto-day. This answered every purpose and nothing has ever been foundthat has supplanted it. It is something of a pity that Watson did notthink to affix his name to this invention; but he was too deeplyinterested in what he was doing and probably too busy to consider itsvalue. His one idea was to help Mr. Bell to improve the telephone inevery way possible and measuring what he was going to get out of it wasapparently very far from his thought. Of course, the first of thesecall bells were not perfect, any more than were the first telephones;by and by, however, their defects were remedied until they becameentirely satisfactory."

  "So they now had telephones, transmitters, and call bells," reflectedTed. "I should say they were pretty well ready for business."

  "You forget the switchboard," was Mr. Hazen's retort. "A one-party linewas a luxury and a thing practically beyond the reach of the public. Atbest there were very few of them. No, some method for connectingparties who wished to speak to one another had to be found and it is atthis juncture of the telephone's career that a new contributor to theinvention's success comes upon the scene.

  "Doing business at Number 342 Washington Street was a young New Yorkerby the name of Edwin T. Holmes, who had charge of his father'sburglar-alarm office. As all the electrical equipment he used was madeat Williams's shop, he used frequently to go there and one day, when heentered, he came upon Charles Williams, the proprietor of the store,standing before a little box that rested on a shelf and shouting intoit. Hearing Mr. Holmes's step, he glanced over his shoulder, met hisvisitor's astonished gaze, and laughed.

  "'For Heaven's sake, Williams, what have you got in that box?' demandedMr. Holmes.

  "'Oh, this is what that fellow out there by Watson's bench, Mr. Bell,calls a telephone,' replied Mr. Williams.

  "'So that's the thing I have seen squibs in the paper about!' observedthe burglar-alarm man with curiosity.

  "'Yes, he and Watson have been working at it for some time.'

  "Now Mr. Holmes knew Tom Watson well for the young electrician had donea great deal of work for him in the past; moreover, the New York manwas a person who kept well abreast of the times and was always alertfor novel ideas. Therefore quite naturally he became interested in theembryo enterprise and dropped into Williams's shop almost every day tosee how the infant invention was progressing. In this way he met bothMr. Gardiner Hubbard and Mr. Thomas Saunders, who were Mr. Bell'sfinancial sponsors. After Mr. Holmes had been a spectator of thetelephone for some time, he remarked to Mr. Hubbard:

  "'If you succeed in getting two or three of those things to work andwill lend them to me, I will show them to Boston.'

  "'Show them to Boston,' repeated Mr. Hubbard. 'How will you do that?'

  "'Well,' said Mr. Holmes, 'I have a Central Office down at Number 342Washington Street from which I have individual wires running to most ofthe banks, many jeweler's shops, and other stores. I can ring a bell ina bank from my office and the bank can ring one to me in return. Byusing switches and giving a prearranged signal to the Exchange Bank,both of us could throw a switch which would put the telephones incircuit and we could talk together.'

  "After looking at Mr. Holmes for a moment with great surprise, Mr.Hubbard slapped him on the back and said, 'I will do it! Get yourswitches and other things ready.'

  "Of course Mr. Holmes was greatly elated to be the first one to show onhis wires this wonderful new instrument and connect two or more partiesthrough a Central Office. He immediately had a switchboard made (itsactual size was five by thirty-six inches) through which he ran a fewof his burglar-alarm circuits and by means of plugs he arranged so thathe could throw the circuit from the burglar-alarm instruments to thetelephone. He also had a shelf made to rest the telephones on and hadothers like it built at the Exchange National and the Hide and Leatherbanks. In a few days the telephones, numbered 6, 7, and 8, arrived andwere quickly installed, and the marvellous exhibition opened. Soon twomore instruments were added, one of which was placed in the bankinghouse of Brewster, Bassett and Company and the other in the Shoe andLeather Bank. When the Williams shop was connected, it gave Mr. Holmesa working exchange of five connections, the first telephone exchange inhistory."

  "I'll bet they had some queer times with it," asserted Ted.

  "They did, indeed!" smiled Mr. Hazen. "The papers announced the event,although in very retiring type, and persons of every walk in lifeflocked to the Holmes office to see the wonder with their own eyes. Somany came that Mr. Holmes had a long bench made so that visitors couldsit down and watch the show. One day a cornetist played from the Holmesbuilding so that the members of the Boston Stock Exchange, assembled atthe office of Brewster, Bassett and Company, could hear theperformance. Considering the innovation a great boon, the New York mansecured another instrument and after meditating some time on whom hewould bestow it he decided to install it in the Revere Bank, thinkingthe bank people would be delighted to be recipients of the favor. Hisburglar-alarm department had pass-keys to all the banks and therefore,when banking hours were over, he and one of his men obtained entranceand put the telephone in place. The following morning he had word thatthe president of the bank wished to see him and expecting to receivethanks for the happy little surprise he had given the official, hehurried to the bank. Instead of expressing gratitude, however, thepresident of the institution said in an injured tone:

  "'Mr. Holmes, what is that play toy you have taken the liberty ofputting up out there in the banking room?'

&nb
sp; "'Why, that is what they are going to call a telephone,' explained Mr.Holmes.

  "'A telephone! What's a telephone?' inquired the president.

  "With enthusiasm the New Yorker carefully sketched in the new inventionand told what could be done with it.

  "After he had finished he was greatly astonished to have the head ofthe bank reply with scorn:

  "'Mr. Holmes, you take that plaything out of my bank and don't evertake such liberties again.'

  "You may be sure the _plaything_ was quickly removed and the RevereBank went on record as having the first telephone disconnection in thecountry.

  "Having exhibited the telephones for a couple of weeks, Mr. Holmes wentto Mr. Hubbard and suggested that he would like to continue to carry onthe exchange but he should like it put on a business basis.

  "'Have you any money?' asked Mr. Hubbard.

  "'Mighty little,' was the frank answer.

  "'Well, that's more than we have got,' Mr. Hubbard responded. 'However,if you have got enough money to do the business and build the exchange,we will rent you the telephones.'

  "By August, 1877, when Bell's patent was sixteen months' old, Casson'sHistory tells us there were seven hundred and seventy-eight telephonesin use and the Bell Telephone Association was formed. The organizationwas held together by an extremely simple agreement which gave Bell,Hubbard, and Saunders a three-tenths' interest apiece in the patentsand Watson one-tenth. The business possessed no capital, as there wasnone to be had; and these four men at that time had an absolutemonopoly of the telephone business,--and everybody else was quitewilling they should have.

  "In addition to these four associates was Charles Williams, who hadfrom the first been a believer in the venture, and Mr. Holmes who builtthe first telephone exchange with his own money, and had about sevenhundred of the seven hundred and seventy-eight instruments on hiswires. Mr. Robert W. Devonshire joined the others in August, 1877, asbookkeeper and general secretary and has since become an official inthe American Telephone and Telegraph Company.

  "Mr. Holmes rented the telephones for ten dollars a year and throughhis exchange was the first practical man who had the temerity to offertelephone service for sale. It was the arrival of a new idea in thebusiness world.

  "Now the business world is not a tranquil place and as soon as the newinvention began to prosper, every sort of difficulty beset its path.

  "There were those who denied that Mr. Bell had been first in the fieldwith the telephone idea, and they began to contest his right to thepatents. Other telephone companies sprang up and began to compete withthe rugged-hearted pioneers who had launched the industry. Lawsuitsfollowed and for years Mr. Bell's days were one continual fight tomaintain his claims and keep others from wresting his hard-earnedprosperity from him. But in time smoother waters were reached and nowAlexander Graham Bell has been universally conceded to be the inventorof this marvel without which we of the present should scarcely know howto get on."

  "I don't believe we could live without telephones now, do you?"remarked Laurie thoughtfully.

  "Oh, I suppose we could keep alive," laughed Mr. Hazen, "but I amafraid our present order of civilization would have to be changed agood deal. We scarcely realize what a part the telephone plays inalmost everything we attempt to do. Certainly the invention helps tospeed up our existence; and, convenient as it is, I sometimes amungrateful enough to wonder whether we should not be a less highlystrung and nervous nation without it. However that may be, thetelephone is here, and here to stay, and you now have a pretty clearidea of its early history. How from these slender beginnings theindustry spread until it spanned continents and circled the globe, youcan easily read elsewhere. Yet mighty as this factor has become in thebusiness world, it is not from this angle of its greatness that I likebest to view it. I would rather think of the lives it has saved; thegood news it has often borne; the misunderstandings it has prevented;the better unity it has promoted among all peoples. Just as therailroad was a gigantic agent in bringing North, South, East, and Westcloser together, so the telephone has helped to make our vast country,with its many diverse elements, 'one nation, indivisible.'"