This was the year of the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, and Bell
decided to make an exhibit there. I was still working for Williams, and
one of the jobs I did for Bell was to construct a telephone of each form
that had been devised up to that time. These were the first nicely
finished instruments that had been made. There had been no money nor
time to waste on polish or non-essentials. But these Centennial
telephones were done up in the highest style of the art. You could see
your face in them. These aristocratic telephones worked finely, in spite
of their glitter, when Sir William Thompson tried them at Philadelphia
that summer. I was as proud as Bell himself, when I read Sir William’s
report, wherein he said after giving an account of the tests: “I need
hardly say I was astonished and delighted, so were the others who
witnessed the experiment and verified with their own ears the electric
transmission of speech. This, perhaps, the greatest marvel hitherto
achieved by electric telegraph, has been obtained by appliances of quite
a homespun and rudimentary character.” I have never forgiven Sir William
for that last line. Homespun!