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.

"'Yes, he and Watson have been working at it for some time.'

"Now Mr. Holmes knew Tom Watson well for the young electrician had done
a great deal of work for him in the past; moreover, the New York man
was a person who kept well abreast of the times and was always alert
for novel ideas. Therefore quite naturally he became interested in the
embryo enterprise and dropped into Williams's shop almost every day to
see how the infant invention was progressing. In this way he met both
Mr. Gardiner Hubbard and Mr. Thomas Saunders, who were Mr. Bell's
financial sponsors. After Mr. Holmes had been a spectator of the
telephone for some time, he remarked to Mr. Hubbard:

"'If you succeed in getting two or three of those things to work and
will lend them to me, I will show them to Boston.'

"'Show them to Boston,' repeated Mr. Hubbard. 'How will you do that?'

"'Well,' said Mr. Holmes, 'I have a Central Office down at Number 342
Washington Street from which I have individual wires running to most of
the banks, many jeweler's shops, and other stores. I can ring a bell in
a bank from my office and the bank can ring one to me in return. By
using switches and giving a prearranged signal to the Exchange Bank,
both of us could throw a switch which would put the telepho