My connection with the telephone business ceased in 1881. The strenuous
years I had passed through had fixed in me a habit of not sleeping
nights as much as I should, and a doctor man told me I would better go
abroad for a year or two for a change. There was not the least need of
this, but as it coincided exactly with my desires, and as the telephone
business had become, I thought, merely a matter of routine, with nothing
more to do except pay dividends and fight infringers, I resigned my
position as General Inspector of the Company, and went over the ocean
for the first time.
When I returned to this country a year or so later, I found the
telephone business had not suffered in the least from my absence, but
there were so many better men doing the work that I had been doing, that
I didn’t care to go into it again.
I was looking for more trouble in life and so I went into shipbuilding,
where I found all I needed.
Before Mr. Bell went to England on his bridal trip, we agreed that as
soon as the telephone became a matter of routine business he and I would
begin experimenting on flying machines, on which subject he was full of
ideas at that early time. I never carried out this agreement. Bell did
some notable work on airships later, but I turned my attention to
battleships.