One evening she dined out. Her next neighbor on one side was a young
American engineer, and in their conversation they came in time to the
topic of invention and the curious aptitude for inventiveness shown by
the American race. It was a case, said the engineer, of supply following
demand; all Americans required time--and labor-saving appliances, and
they obtained them. Where servants abounded and there was no servant
problem, as in England and on the Continent, the need for such
contrivances was not acute. And so on. The conversation thus begun
reached at last specific inventions, and the engineer told of a
remarkable one which had come under his notice just before he left New
York.
'You will probably not believe me,' he said; 'the thing sounds
incredible; but then who would have believed once that there could be a
telegraph, and still less a telephone? Who would have believed that the
camera would ever be anything but a dream? I will tell you what this is.
It is a machine in which you insert a portion, no matter how small, of
a telephone wire, and by turning a handle you compel this piece of wire
to give back every message that has ever passed over it.'
She held her heart. 'This really exists?' she forced herself to ask.
'Actually,' said the engineer. 'But when I left home the inventor was in
a difficulty. All the messages were coming out all right, but backwards.
Naturally the reproduction would be from the most recent to the less
recent. By writing down the words and then reversing them the
investigator could of course get at what he was wanting,--I may say that
the invention is for the New York police--but my friend is convinced
that he can devise some mechanical system of reversing at the time which
will make the messages read forward as they should. Just think of the
excitement of the detective, listening through all the voices and
ordinary conversations on the wire for the one voice and the one
sentence that will give him his long desired clue!--But are you ill?'
'No, no,' she said, although her face was a ghastly white, 'no, it is
nothing. The room is a little hot. Tell me some more about your
inventive friend. Is he wealthy?'
'Indeed, no,' said the engineer. 'That is his trouble. If he had more
money, or if he had some rich backers who believed in him, he might do
wonders.'
'I should like to help him,' she said. 'This kind of work interests me.
Could you not cable him to come over and bring the thing with him? I
would gladly finance him. I want some sporting outlet like that for my
money.'
'Cable?'
'Yes, cable. There are things that one does by impulse or not at all.
The butler here will get you a form.'