United States or Falkland Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


If boys were what they were in my day, the rate at which their indispensables would get unaccountably lost or broken would be alarming." Hamage laughed, and admitted that the one he was carrying home was the fourth he had bought for his boy within a month.

"The people at those counters are not purchasers, but borrowers," Hamage replied; and then he explained that whereas the old-fashioned printed book, being handled by the reader, was damaged by use, and therefore had either to be purchased outright or borrowed at high rates of hire, the phonograph of a book being not handled, but merely revolved in a machine, was but little injured by use, and therefore phonographed books could be lent out for an infinitesimal price.

The stone-deaf will of course be dependent upon printed books prepared for their benefit, as raised-letter books used to be for the blind." As we entered the elevator to ascend to the upper floors of the establishment, Hamage explained that he wanted me to see, before I left, the process of phonographing books, which was the modern substitute for printing them.

"They would be," said Hamage, "if popular elocutionists, such as Playwell here, did not charge so like fun for their services. The public has taken it into its head that he is the only first-class elocutionist, and won't buy anybody else's work. Consequently the authors stipulate that he shall interpret their productions, and the publishers, between the public and the authors, are at his mercy."

Indeed, Hamage admitted that nowadays nobody with any taste for literature if the word may for convenience be retained thought of contenting himself with less than half a dozen renderings of the great poets and dramatists.

As to the half and quarter strokes, they were wholly useless unless you chanced to know what was the last hour struck. And then, too, I should like to ask you why, in the name of common sense, it should take twelve times as long to tell you it is twelve o'clock as it does to tell you it is one." The manager laughed as heartily as Hamage had done on learning of my scare of the night before.

Others might not have agreed with me, but I confess that none of the ingenious applications of the phonograph which I had seen seemed to be so well worth while as this. Hamage had left me to make his purchases, and found me on his return still sitting spellbound. "Come, come," he said, laughing, "I have Shakespeare complete at home, and you shall sit up all night, if you choose, hearing plays.

At this point our conversation was broken off by Hamage, who declared that, if we were to catch the last train out of town before noon, we had no time to lose. Of the trip out to Hamage's place I recall nothing. I was, in fact, aroused from a sound nap by the stopping of the train and the bustle of the departing passengers. Hamage had disappeared.

When I told Hamage of my experience of the night before with the talking clock in my room, he laughed uproariously. "I am very glad you mentioned this just now," he said, when he had quieted himself. "We have a couple of hours before the train goes out to my place, and I 'll take you through Orton's establishment, where they make a specialty of these talking clocks.

To all persons charged with weighty responsibilities depending upon accuracy of memory for their correct discharge, this feature of the indispensable rendered it, according to Hamage, and indeed quite obviously, an indispensable truly.