absurd performance,
especially when they had to shout at the top of their voices. Plainly,
whatever of convenience there might be in this new contrivance was
far outweighed by the loss of personal dignity; and very few men
had sufficient imagination to picture the telephone as a part of the
machinery of their daily work. The banker said it might do well enough
for grocers, but that it would never be of any value to banking; and the
grocer said it might do well enough for bankers, but that it would never
be of any value to grocers.

As Bell had worked out his invention in Salem, one editor displayed the
headline, "Salem Witchcraft." The New York Herald said: "The effect is
weird and almost supernatural." The Providence Press said: "It is hard
to resist the notion that the powers of darkness are somehow in league
with it." And The Boston Times said, in an editorial of bantering
ridicule: "A fellow can now court his girl in China as well as in East
Boston; but the most serious aspect of this invention is the awful and
irresponsible power it will give to the average mother-in-law, who will
be able to send her voice around the habitable globe."

There were hundreds of shrewd capitalists in American cities in 1876,
looking with sharp eyes in all directions for business chances; but not
one of them came to Bell with an offer to buy his patent. Not one came
running for a State contract. And neither did any legislature, or city
council, come forward to the task of giving the people a cheap and
efficient telephone service. As for Bell himself, he was not a man of
affairs. In all practical business matters, he was as incompetent as a
Byron or a Shelley. He had done his part, and it now remained for men
of different abilities to take up his telephone and adapt it to the uses
and conditions of the business world.

The first man to undertake this work was Gardiner G. Hubbard, who
became soon afterwards the father-in-law of Bell. He, too, was a man
of enthusiasm rather than of efficiency. He was not a man of wealth
or business experience, but he was admirably suited to introduce the
telephone to a hostile public. His father had been a judge of the
Massachusetts Supreme Court; and he himself was a lawyer whose practice
had been mainly in matters of legislation. He was, in 1876, a man of
venerable appearance, with white hair, worn long, and a patriarchal
beard. He was a familiar figure in Washington, and well known among the
public m