"I should say not!" Laurie returned. "It must have acted as a fine check, 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, after the 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 box and afterwards put a button on the outside. This thumper was the first calling device ever in use. Later on, however, the assistant felt he could improve on this method and he adapted the buzzer of the harmonic telegraph to the telephone; this proved to be a distinct advance over the more primitive thumper but nevertheless he was not satisfied with it as a signaling apparatus. So he searched farther still, and with the aid of one of the shabby little books on electricity that he had purchased for a quarter from Williams's tiny showcase, he evolved the magneto-electric call bell such as we use to-day. This answered every purpose and nothing has ever been found that has supplanted it. It is something of a pity that Watson did not think to affix his name to this invention; but he was too deeply interested in what he was doing and probably too busy to consider its value. His one idea was to help Mr. Bell to improve the telephone in every way possible and measuring what he was going to get out of it was apparently very far from his thought. Of course, the first of these call bells were not perfect, any more than were the first telephones; by and by, however, their defects were remedied until they became entirely satisfactory."
"So they now had telephones, transmitters, and call bells," reflected Ted. "I should say they were pretty well ready for business."
"You forget the switchboard," was Mr. Hazen's retort. "A one-party line was a luxury and a thing practically beyond the reach of the public. At best there were very few of them. No, some method for connecting parties who wished to speak to one another had to be found and it is at this juncture of the telephone's career that a new contributor to the invention's success comes upon the scene.
"Doing business at Number 342 Washington Street was a young New Yorker by the name of Edwin T. Holmes, who had charge of his father's burglar-alarm office. As all the electrical equipment he used was made at Williams's shop, he used frequently to go there and one day, when he entered, he came upon Charles Williams, the proprietor of the store, standing before a little box that rested on a shelf and shouting into it. Hearing Mr. Holmes's step, he glanced over his shoulder, met his visitor's astonished gaze, and laughed.
"'For Heaven's sake, Williams, what have you got in that box?' demanded Mr. 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!' observed the burglar-alarm man with curiosity.