The History of the Telephone | Page 9

wild joy up three flights of stairs to tell the glad tidings to
Bell. "I can hear you!" he shouted breathlessly. "I can hear the
WORDS."
It was not easy, of course, for the weak young telephone to make itself
heard in that noisy workshop. No one, not even Bell and Watson, was
familiar with its odd little voice. Usually Watson, who had a
remarkably keen sense of hearing, did the listening; and Bell, who was
a professional elocutionist, did the talking. And day by day the tone of
the baby instrument grew clearer--a new note in the orchestra of
civilization.
On his twenty-ninth birthday, Bell received his patent, No.
174,465--"the most valuable single patent ever issued" in any country.

He had created something so entirely new that there was no name for it
in any of the world's languages. In describing it to the officials of the
Patent Office, he was obliged to call it "an improvement in telegraphy,"
when, in truth, it was nothing of the kind. It was as different from the
telegraph as the eloquence of a great orator is from the sign-language of
a deaf-mute.
Other inventors had worked from the standpoint of the telegraph; and
they never did, and never could, get any better results than signs and
symbols. But Bell worked from the standpoint of the human voice. He
cross-fertilized the two sciences of acoustics and electricity. His study
of "Visible Speech" had trained his mind so that he could mentally SEE
the shape of a word as he spoke it. He knew what a spoken word was,
and how it acted upon the air, or the ether, that carried its vibrations
from the lips to the ear. He was a third-generation specialist in the
nature of speech, and he knew that for the transmission of spoken
words there must be "a pulsatory action of the electric current which is
the exact equivalent of the aerial impulses."
Bell knew just enough about electricity, and not too much. He did not
know the possible from the impossible. "Had I known more about
electricity, and less about sound," he said, "I would never have
invented the telephone." What he had done was so amazing, so
foolhardy, that no trained electrician could have thought of it. It was
"the very hardihood of invention," and yet it was not in any sense a
chance discovery. It was the natural output of a mind that had been led
to assemble just the right materials for such a product.
As though the very stars in their courses were working for this young
wizard with the talking wire, the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia
opened its doors exactly two months after the telephone had learned to
talk. Here was a superb opportunity to let the wide world know what
had been done, and fortunately Hubbard was one of the Centennial
Commissioners. By his influence a small table was placed in the
Department of Education, in a narrow space between a stairway and a
wall, and on this table was deposited the first of the telephones.
Bell had no intention of going to the Centennial himself. He was too

poor. Sanders and Hubbard had never done more than pay his
room-rent and the expense of his experiments. For his three or four
years of inventing he had re- ceived nothing as yet--nothing but his
patent. In order to live, he had been compelled to reorganize his classes
in "Visible Speech," and to pick up the ravelled ends of his neglected
profession.
But one Friday afternoon, toward the end of June, his sweetheart,
Mabel Hubbard, was taking the train for the Centennial; and he went to
the depot to say good-bye. Here Miss Hubbard learned for the first time
that Bell was not to go. She coaxed and pleaded, without effect. Then,
as the train was starting, leaving Bell on the platform, the affectionate
young girl could no longer control her feelings and was overcome by a
passion of tears. At this the susceptible Bell, like a true Sir Galahad,
dashed after the moving train and sprang aboard, without ticket or
baggage, oblivious of his classes and his poverty and of all else except
this one maiden's distress. "I never saw a man," said Watson, "so much
in love as Bell was."
As it happened, this impromptu trip to the Centennial proved to be one
of the most timely acts of his life. On the following Sunday after- noon
the judges were to make a special tour of inspection, and Mr. Hubbard,
after much trouble, had obtained a promise that they would spend a few
minutes examining Bell's telephone. By this time it had been on
exhibition for more than six weeks, without attracting the serious
attention of anybody.
When Sunday afternoon arrived, Bell was