There was a slight Punchinellian
twang about its utterances, which, if it did not altogether disguise the
individuality of the distant speaker, gave it the comicality of a clever
parody, and to hear it singing a song, and quavering jauntily on the
high notes, was irresistibly funny. Instrumental notes were given in
all their purity, and, after the phonograph, there was nothing more
magical in the whole range of science than to hear that fragment of
common chalk distilling to the air the liquid melody of sweet bells
jingling in tune. It brought to mind that wonderful stone of Memnon,
which responded to the rays of sunrise. It seemed to the listener that
if the age of miracles was past that of marvels had arrived, and
considering the simplicity of the materials, and the obscurity of its
action, the loud-speaking telephone was one of the most astonishing of
recent inventions.
After Professor Hughes had published his discovery of the microphone,
Edison, recognising, perhaps, that it and the carbon transmitter were
based on the same principle, and having learnt his knowledge of the
world in the hard school of adversity, hastily claimed the microphone as
a variety of his invention, but imprudently charged Professor Hughes and
his friend, Mr.
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