“The proceedings of the evening were opened by the managing director in London sending a telegram to the manager at Bombay.
“‘How are you all?’ was the brief first telegram by Sir James Anderson. ‘All well,’ was the briefer first reply from Bombay. The question fled from London at 9:18 exactly—I had my watch in my hand at the time—and the answer came back at 9:23—just five minutes. I can tell you it was hard to believe that the whole thing was not a practical joke. In fact, the message and reply were almost instantaneous, the five minutes being chiefly occupied in manipulating the instruments at either end. The second message between the same parties occupied the same time. After that Sir Bartle Frere sent a telegram to Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, the Governor of Bombay, as follows:— ‘Sir Bartle Frere wishes health and prosperity to all old friends in Bombay.’ This was received by the Company’s superintendent at Bombay, and the acknowledgment of its receipt sent back in four minutes and fifty seconds! But the reply from the Governor, ‘Your old friend returns your good wishes,’ did not come to us for thirty-six minutes, because the message had to be sent to the Governor’s house, and it found his Excellency in bed.
“Next, a message was sent by Lady Mayo in London to Lord Mayo at Simla, which, with the acknowledgment of it, occupied 15 minutes in transmission. Of course time was lost in some cases, because the persons telegraphed to were not on the spot at the moment. The Prince of Wales telegraphed to the Viceroy of India, ‘I congratulate your Excellency on England and India being now connected by a submarine cable. I feel assured this grand achievement will prove of immense benefit to the welfare of the Empire. Its success is thus matter of imperial interest,’ which telegram passed out, and the acknowledgment of its receipt in India was returned to London, all within eleven minutes, but, as in the former case, the Viceroy was in bed, so that his reply was not received till forty-five minutes had elapsed. Had the Viceroy been at the Indian end of the wire, he and the Prince could have conversed at an average rate of five minutes a sentence.
“Many other messages were sent to and fro,” continued Sam, turning over the leaves of his note-book, “not only from London to India, but to each of the intermediate stations on the cable line, so that we had direct intercourse that night with the King of Portugal, the Governors of Gibraltar, Malta, and Aden, and the Khedive of Egypt. But that was not all. We put the old and the new world into communication, so that the ‘press of India sent salaam to the press of America.’ Sir James Anderson also telegraphed to Cyrus W. Field, Esquire, the father of submarine telegraphy in my estimation,” (Hear, hear, from Robin), “and he sent a reply, which began, ‘Your message of this evening received by me before five o’clock this afternoon.’ Mark that, Captain Rik, the message received before it was sent, so to speak!”
“Ay, ay, lad—I know—difference of longitude,—fire away.”
“Well, I have fired away most of my ammunition now,” returned Sam, “and if you don’t haul down your colours, it must be because you have nailed them to the mast and are blind to reason. I may add, however, that the Viceroy of India sent a telegram to the President of the United States, to which he got a reply in seven hours and forty minutes, but the slowness of this message was accounted for by the fact of accidental and partly unavoidable delay in transmission both in Washington and London. At 1:30 a.m. of the 24th the traffic of the line became pressing, and all complimentary messages ceased with one from Bombay, which said, ‘Sun just risen; delightfully cool; raining.’”
“Doesn’t it seem as if the Baron Monkhausen’s tales were possible after all?” remarked Mrs Wright, looking as if her mind had got slightly confused.
“The Baron’s tales are mere child’s-play, mother,” said Robin, “to the grand facts of electricity.”
“That’s so, Robin,” said Sam, still turning over the leaves of his note-book, “and we had some magnificent experiments or illustrations at the fête, which go far to prove the truth of your remark—experiments which were so beautiful that they would have made the eyes of Letta sparkle even more gorgeously than they are doing at present, if she had seen them.”
Letta blushed, returned to self-consciousness for a moment, looked down, laughed, looked up as Sam proceeded, and soon again forgot herself in a fixed and earnest gaze.