it for three years and it had constantly baffled
him, until, on this hot afternoon in June, 1875,
he heard an almost inaudible sound--a faint
TWANG--come from the machine itself.

For an instant he was stunned. He had been
expecting just such a sound for several months,
but it came so suddenly as to give him the sensation
of surprise. His eyes blazed with delight,
and he sprang in a passion of eagerness to an
adjoining room in which stood a young mechanic
who was assisting him.

"Snap that reed again, Watson," cried the
apparently irrational young professor. There
was one of the odd-looking machines in each
room, so it appears, and the two were connected
by an electric wire. Watson had snapped the
reed on one of the machines and the professor
had heard from the other machine exactly the
same sound. It was no more than the gentle
TWANG of a clock-spring; but it was the first time
in the history of the world that a complete sound
had been carried along a wire, reproduced perfectly
at the other end, and heard by an expert
in acoustics.

That twang of the clock-spring was the first
tiny cry of the newborn telephone, uttered in the
clanging din of a machine-shop and happily