achine very
much resembling in appearance the tube, with a mouth-piece at one end
and an ear-piece at the other, frequently used by deaf persons, but very
different in its construction and action. In the ordinary instrument the
words spoken into the mouth-piece are carried through the tube to the
ear, and are then heard exactly as they are spoken. When I used my
instrument the person spoke into the mouth-piece exactly as if it were
an ordinary tube, but the result was very different, for the great
feature of my invention was that, no matter what language was spoken by
the person at the mouth-piece, be it Greek, Choctaw, or Chinese, the
words came to the ear in perfect English.

"This translation was accomplished by means of certain delicate
machinery contained in the end of the mouth-piece, which was longer and
larger than that of the ordinary ear-tube, but the outward appearance of
which did not indicate that it held anything extraordinary. It would
take too long to explain this mechanism to you, and you would not be
interested; nor is it necessary to my story.

"When, after countless experiments and disappointments, and days and
nights of hard study and hard work, I finished my little machine, which
I called a translatophone, I was naturally anxious to see how it would
work with some other person than myself at the mouth-piece. In the
course of its construction I had frequently tried the machine by putting
the ear-piece into my ear and speaking into the mouth-piece such scraps
of foreign languages as I was able to command. These experiments were
generally satisfactory, but I could not be satisfied that the machine
was a success until some one else should speak into it in some foreign
tongue of which I knew positively nothing, so that it would be
impossible for me to translate it unconsciously.

"This was not an easy thing, and I had determined I would not explain my
invention to the public until I had assured myself that it worked
perfectly, and until I had had my property in the invention secured to
me by patent right. To go to a foreigner and ask him to speak into my
instrument, using a language he could readily assure himself I did not
speak or understand, would be the same thing as an avowal of what the
translatophone was intended to do. I thought of several plans, but none
suited me. I did not want to pretend to be deaf, and, even if I did so,
I could not explain why I wished to be spoken to in a language I did