I brand that document as a forgery."
Kennedy stood up and reached down into the open drawer on the right
of his desk. From it he lifted the two machines I had seen him place
there early in the evening.
Gentlemen," he said, " this is the last scene of the play you are
enacting. You see here on the desk an instrument that was invented
many years ago, but has only recently become really practical. It
is the telautograph - the long-distance writer. In this new form
it can be introduced into the drawer of a desk for the use of any
one who may wish to make inquiries, say, of clerks without the
knowledge of a caller. It makes it possible to write a message
under these conditions and receive an answer concerning the
personality or business of the individual seated at one's elbow
without leaving the desk or seeming to make inquiries.
"With an ordinary pencil I have written on the paper of the
transmitter. The silk cord attached to the pencil regulates the
current which controls a pencil at the other end of the line. The
receiving pencil moves simultaneously with my pencil. It is the
principle of the pantograph cut in half, one half here, the other
half at the end of the line, two telephone wires in this case
connecting the halves.
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