The two boys seemed to be conversing in a low tone with each other and my interest was immediately aroused. I took the can out of one of the boy's hands (rather rudely as I remember it now), and putting my ear to the mouth of it I could hear the voice of the boy across the street. I conversed with him a moment, then noticed how the cord was connected at the bottom of the two cans, when, suddenly, the problem of electrical speech-transmission was solved in my mind. I did not have an opportunity immediately to construct an instrument, as I had a partner who was furnishing money for the development of the harmonic telegraph and would not listen to any collateral experiments. I remember sitting down by this partner one day and telling him what I could do in the way of transmitting speech through a wire. I told him I thought it would be very valuable if worked out. He gave me a look that I shall never forget, but he did not say a word. The look conveyed more meaning than all the words he could have said, and I did not dare broach the subject again. However, as soon as I found opportunity, without saying a word to anybody except my patent lawyer, I filed a description, accompanied by drawings, of a speaking telephone which stands in history to-day as the first complete description on record of the operation of the speaking telephone. It described an apparatus which, when constructed, worked as described, and it is a matter of history that the first articulate speech electrically transmitted in this country was by a transmitter constructed on the principle described, and almost identically after the drawings in my caveat. While the transmitter described in this caveat was not the best form, it would transmit speech, and it contained the foundation principle of all the telephone transmitters in use to-day. There are two methods of transmitting speech. One is known as the magneto method and the other that of varying the resistance of the circuit. My first transmitter was devised on the latter principle. I append to this extracts from my specification filed Feb. 14, 1876: