al telegraph of Elisha Gray, and the marvellous exhibit of printing
telegraphs shown by the Western Union Company. By the time they came to
Bell's table, through a litter of school-desks and blackboards, the
hour was seven o'clock, and every man in the party was hot, tired, and
hungry. Several announced their intention of returning to their hotels.
One took up a telephone receiver, looked at it blankly, and put it
down again. He did not even place it to his ear. Another judge made a
slighting remark which raised a laugh at Bell's expense. Then a most
marvellous thing happened--such an incident as would make a chapter in
"The Arabian Nights Entertainments."
Accompanied by his wife, the Empress Theresa, and by a bevy of
courtiers, the Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro de Alcantara, walked into
the room, advanced with both hands outstretched to the bewildered Bell,
and exclaimed: "Professor Bell, I am delighted to see you again." The
judges at once forgot the heat and the fatigue and the hunger. Who was
this young inventor, with the pale complexion and black eyes, that he
should be the friend of Emperors? They did not know, and for the moment
even Bell himself had forgotten, that Dom Pedro had once visited Bell's
class of deaf-mutes at Boston University. He was especially interested
in such humanitarian work, and had recently helped to organize the first
Brazilian school for deaf-mutes at Rio de Janeiro. And so, with the
tall, blond-bearded Dom Pedro in the centre, the assembled judges, and
scientists--there were fully fifty in all--entered with unusual zest
into the proceedings of this first telephone exhibition.
A wire had been strung from one end of the room to the other, and while
Bell went to the transmitter, Dom Pedro took up the receiver and placed
it to his ear. It was a moment of tense expectancy. No one knew clearly
what was about to happen, when the Emperor, with a dramatic gesture,
raised his head from the receiver and exclaimed with a look of utter
amazement: "MY GOD--IT TALKS!"
Next came to the receiver the oldest scientist in the group, the
venerable Joseph Henry, whose encouragement to Bell had been so timely.
He stopped to listen, and, as one of the bystanders afterwards said,
no one could forget the look of awe that came into his face as he heard
that iron disc talking with a human voice. "This," said he, "comes
nearer to overthrowing the doctrine of the conservation of energy than
anything I ever saw."
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