"Here, Arthur, you've used a telephone before. Take my place at the receiver, will you?"
There was no need to ask. Arthur was at the receiver when the lawyer's question was finished. No message came for some time; but at last the bell rang, and Arthur announced proudly:
"He says Florida has gone Republican."
"I knew the thing couldn't be trusted," sputtered an old voter then. "As if the solid South were broken! I'll get my news some other way." And off he went.
"You didn't hear right, I fancy," said the lawyer, returning. "The operator couldn't have said that."
"But he did," insisted Arthur. "I'm sure he did."
"And why not?" quietly asked the school teacher from one corner of the room. "He means the town of Florida, not the state."
"Of course," said everybody.
By 1883, Arthur heard that conversation had been carried on between New York and Chicago, cities one thousand miles apart. "That is all we can hope for," was the general verdict. For a long time it seemed true. But when the country had been covered by a network of wires, there came another long-distance triumph. Communication was open to Omaha, five hundred miles farther west.