So the list spun out. Lidiat did not touch the provinces, but sixteen London dailies, including some sporting and financial organs, marked the thoroughness of his work. At half-past three he finally hung up the receiver; and taking the brougham, rode like another Wellington over the field of his still palpitating Waterloo. His appearance, bovine and imperturbable despite the shameful incongruity of his garb when revealed in the tremulous and romantic dawn of a day and of an epoch, and further set off by the unimpeachable correctness of the equipage from which he alighted, was a thing that rankled in the minds of lingering compositors and commissionaires until their dying days. A few minutes after his departure Hampden returned to the telephone and desired to make the curious connection "1 Telescribe." "Who is there?" he asked, when "1 Telescribe" responded. The man at the other end explained that he was a clerk on the main platform of "1 Telescribe"--name of Firkin, if the fact was of Metropolitan interest. "Is Mr Woodbarrow there yet?" It appeared, with increased respect, that Mr Woodbarrow was in his own office and could be informed of the gentleman's name. "Please tell him that Sir John Hampden wishes to speak with him." In two minutes another voice filtered through the wire, a voice which Hampden recognised. "What are you running with now, Mr Woodbarrow?" he asked, when brief courtesies had been exchanged. Mr Woodbarrow made an enquiry, and was able to report that a 5 H.P. Tangye was supplying all the power they needed at that hour. Nothing was coming through, he explained, except a few press messages from America, a little business from Australia, and some early morning news from China. "I should be obliged if you would put on the two Westinghouses as soon as you can, and then let me know when you can clear the trunk lines for a minute. Within the next hour I want to send an 'open board' message." There was no response to this matter-of-fact request for an appreciable five seconds, but if ever silence through a telephone receiver conveyed an impression of blank amazement at the other end, it was achieved at that moment. "Do I rightly understand, Sir John," enquired Mr Woodbarrow at the end of those five seconds, "that you wish to repeat a message over the entire system?" "That is quite correct." "It will constitute a record." "An interesting occasion, then." "Have you calculated the fees, Sir John?" "No, I have not had the time. You will let me know when the power is up?" Mr Woodbarrow, only just beginning to realise fully the magnitude of the occasion and tingling with anticipation, promised to act with all possible speed, and going to his own room Sir John took up an agate pen and proceeded to write with special ink on prepared paper this encyclical despatch.