"MR. WATSON, COME HERE, I WANT YOU." Watson,
who was at the lower end of the wire, in the
basement, dropped the receiver and rushed with
wild joy up three flights of stairs to tell the glad
tidings to Bell. "I can hear you!" he shouted
breathlessly. "I can hear the WORDS."

It was not easy, of course, for the weak young
telephone to make itself heard in that noisy workshop.
No one, not even Bell and Watson, was
familiar with its odd little voice. Usually Watson,
who had a remarkably keen sense of hearing,
did the listening; and Bell, who was a professional
elocutionist, did the talking. And day by day
the tone of the baby instrument grew clearer--a
new note in the orchestra of civilization.

On his twenty-ninth birthday, Bell received
his patent, No. 174,465--"the most valuable
single patent ever issued" in any country. He
had created something so entirely new that there
was no name for it in any of the world's languages.
In describing it to the officials of the
Patent Office, he was obliged to call it "an
improvement in telegraphy," when, in truth, it was
nothing of the kind. It was as different from the
telegraph as the eloquence of a great orator is
from the sign-language of a deaf-mute.