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The Telephone 145 ing, which in those days was in its extreme infancy. His employer, Williams, detected this fancy and gave it every possible inducement, with the result that Watson soon found himself in an ideal world among galvanometers, telegraph keys, electro-mag- nets, relays, and other similar paraphernalia pertain- ing to the comparatively young art of telegraphy. When work was slack in this branch he willingly em- braced any other duty, his greatest achievement being the construction of a steam engine, which he built to an order, when business in the electrical branch was exceedingly dull. Under these circumstances Watson was entrusted with a considerable amount of the most delicate and difficult work which entered the shop, more particu- larly the evolution of ideas for inventors, which tasks, it may be mentioned, held an indescribable attraction for him. On the day when young Alexander Bell called at Williams’s workshops young Watson, then only twenty years old, was busily engaged in working out an experimental torpedo- exploding apparatus. When Williams had learned the object of Bell’s visit he suggested that Watson should fulfil Bell’s ideas, but would the inventor wait until the torpedo- exploding apparatus had been completed ? Bell and Watson had been introduced to each other, and a mutual interest had sprung up between them in- stantly, Bell feeling convinced in his own mind that Watson was the very man to build his instruments, while Watson himself was fascinated by the har- monic telegraph idea. Bell accordingly accepted the services of Watson, who would be available directly K