through the tree in which I was seated. It was a strange sort
of sound, that came in hurried jerks, as it were, accompanied with a
corresponding jerk of the wire.

A gigantic fancy flashed across me:--This State of New York is a great
guitar; yonder, at Albany, are the legislative pegs and screws; down
there in Manhattan Island is the great sounding-board; these iron
wires are the strings! The spirits are singing, perhaps, with their
heads up there in the sweet heavens and the rosy clouds,--and this
vibration of the wires is a sort of loose jangling accompaniment of
their unpractised hands on earth. The voice is always above the
strings.--This I thought in my semi-mesmeric condition, perhaps. I
soon laughed at my Brobdignagian nonsense, and said,--There is a
telegraphic despatch passing. Now if I could only find out what it
is!--that would be something new in science,--a discovery worth
knowing,--to be able to hear or feel the purport of a telegraphic
message, simply by touching the wire along which it runs!

So, regardless of any electric shock I might receive, I thrust out my
hand through the leaves of the tree, and boldly grasped the wire. The
jerks instantly were experienced in my elbow, and it was not long
before certain short sentences were conveyed, magnetically, to my
brain. In my amazement at the discovery, I almost dropped out of the
tree. However, I kept firm hold of the wire, and my sensorium made me
aware of something passing like this:--"Market active. Fair demand for
exchange. Transactions from five to ten thousand shares. Aristides
railroad-stock scarce. Rates of freight to Liverpool firm. Yours
respectfully, Grabber and Holdham."

Upon my word, said I, this is rather dry!--only a merchant! I expected
something better than this, to commence with.

The wire being now quiet, I fell into a musing upon the singular
discovery I had made,--and whether I should get anything from the
public or the government for revealing it. And then my thoughts
wandered across the Atlantic, and I remembered those long rows of
telegraphic wires in France, ruled along the tops of high
barrier-walls, and looking against the sky like immense
music-lines,--and those queer inverted-coffee-cup-like supports for
the wires, on the tall posts. Then I thought of music and coffee at
the Jardin Mabille. Then my fancy wandered down the Champs Elysees to
those multitudinous spider-web wires that radiate from the palace of
the Tuileries