The transmission, moreover, was not as exact as it ought to have been. M. Jules Allix had touched the snails in such order as to form the word _gymnase_; Benoît on his compass read the word _gymoate_. Then M. Triat, taking the place of the inventor, sent the words _lumiere divine_ to M. Jules Allix, who read on his compass _lumhere divine_. Evidently the snails were bad in their orthography. The whole thing, moreover, was a farce, and the correspondence, such as it was, was due to the incessant voyages of the inventor from one compass to the other, under the pretext of supervising the mechanism of the two apparatuses. Benoît was then desired to place himself in communication with his American friend, planted before his compass on the other side of the Atlantic. He transmitted to him the signal to be on the alert. Then he touched with a live snail he held in his hand the four snails that corresponded to the letters of the name BIAT; then they awaited the reply from America. After a few moments, the poor glued snails began to poke out their horns in a desultory, irregular manner, and by putting the letters together, with some accommodation CESTBIEN was made out, which when divided, and the apostrophe added, made _C'est bien_. M. Triat was much disconcerted. He considered himself as hoaxed. Not so M. Allix. He was so completely satisfied, that on the 27th October, appeared the article from his pen which we have quoted. M. Triat then went to the inventor and told him point blank, that he withdrew his protection from him. Benoît entreated him not to throw up the matter, before the telegraph was perfected. "Look here!" said M. Triat; "nothing is easier than for you to make me change my intention. Let one of your compasses be set up in my gymnasium, and the other in the side apartment. If that seems too much, then let a simple screen be drawn between the two, and do you refrain from passing between them whilst the experiment is being carried on. If under these conditions you succeed in transmitting a single word from one apparatus to the other, I will give you a thousand francs a day whilst your experiments are successful." M. Triat then visited M. de Girardin who was interested in the matter, half believed in it, and had accordingly opened the columns of _La Presse_ to the article of M. Allix. M. de Girardin wished to be present at the crucial experiment, and M. Triat gladly invited him to attend. He offered another thousand francs so long as the compasses worked. "My plan is this," said M. de Girardin: "If Benoît's invention is a success, we will hire the _Jardin d'hiver_ and make Benoît perform his experiments in public. That will bring us in a great deal more than two thousand francs a day."