For one hour and without a break, the twain worked fast but gracefully, much Phillips’ code being used and after counting the hour’s work, it was ascertained that two thousand eight hundred words had been transmitted.
Specimens of the work were distributed among the admiring audience, who were loud in their praise of Mr. Loper’s copper-plate chirography and the sheets were given out as souvenirs of the occasion.
It was noticeable that after this exhibition, few of the operators from foreign countries enrolled themselves as competitors at the coming tournament.
“Let’s give the young fellows a show now,” said Fred Catlin, and the two young men previously mentioned, one named Smith, from Birmingham, Postal, and one Brown, from Atlanta, Western Union, came to the front.
The quick, jerky, “bug” sending seemed marvelous to some of the very old-timers and it seemed a little bit difficult for them at first to so adjust their brains to keep up with the merry jingle. The receiving operator, also, was doing some marvelous stunts.
While the sender was transmitting at top-notch speed, the Birmingham boy took out a cigarette, which he lighted and began to puff with as much sang froid as though he were in a down-town cafe, never missing a word or even a punctuation mark.
For one hour this great exhibition kept up, at the end of which time one hundred and thirty messages had been transmitted and copied without an error.
“This is splendid work,” said the president, “and shows clearly how the ‘bug’ and ‘mill’ have it on even the most famous old-timers. It shows plainly how mechanical devices supplant brain material, and after all these are god-sends to the latter day generation of operators.”
Everybody interested in the doings of the telegraph were talking of the day’s proceedings, commending the great work of the old-timers and marvelling at the speed and accuracy of the “up-to-the-minute” telegrapher.
Many new applications were received from those anxious to partake in the coming tournament, and files of back copies of the Telegraph and Telephone Age were looked over and read with the idea to conform with the usual modus of procedure on such occasions.