FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



wealthy and socially prominent people from the States, but that 

 the General had said, "No," that he was coming to Mr. Bryan's 

 because he had met me at Graham Bell's, and that he was not 

 going to lose a chance to see "one of those Graham Bell men!" 

 That was a proud moment for me. To be called a Graham 

 Bell man! 



If one occasionally had such experiences far away from the 

 States, how much oftener must they have occurred in this coun- 

 try! Quiet and unostentatious as these meetings were, they grad- 

 ually became famous. This was impressed upon me strikingly 

 one Wednesday morning when I met on a Washington street Mr. 

 Spencer Miller, a New York inventor and engineer, a friend of 

 some years' standing. After greeting him, I asked him to go 

 with me that night to Dr. Bell's. His face brightened and he said, 

 "By George, I have an important dinner engagement for to- 

 night, with a conference afterwards, but it has been one of the 

 ambitions of my life to go to a Graham Bell Wednesday evening, 

 and I will go with you in spite of all the important engagements 

 in the world." And so we went. 



It was generally understood (and undoubtedly it was one of 

 Dr. Bell's own charmingly tactful ideas) that when any member 

 of the regular group brought with him an especially interesting 

 stranger, the member was asked by Dr. Bell to "tell us some- 

 thing new and interesting." Then the regular would rise and 

 say, "Really, Dr. Bell, I have nothing to contribute personally, 

 but I have taken the liberty of bringing with me tonight Mr. 

 (So-and-so) who has been working on some big things, and I 

 think he might be willing to talk about them a bit." So that 

 night we went through that pleasant form, and Spencer Miller 

 (really more embarrassed than I had ever known him to be 

 before) told us about his invention for transferring coal from one 

 vessel to another while under headway at sea. It delighted Dr. 



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