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disputation, a treaty of peace was drawn up and signed. By the terms of this treaty the Western Union agreed-- (1) To admit that Bell was the original inventor. (2) To admit that his patents were valid. (3) To retire from the telephone business. The Bell Company, in return for this surrender, agreed-- (1) To buy the Western Union telephone system. (2) To pay the Western Union a royalty of twenty per cent on all telephone rentals. (3) To keep out of the telegraph business. This agreement, which was to remain in force for seventeen years, was a master-stroke of diplomacy on the part of the Bell Company. It was the Magna Charta of the telephone. It transformed a giant competitor into a friend. It added to the Bell System fifty-six thousand telephones in fifty-five cities. And it swung the valiant little company up to such a pinnacle of prosperity that its stock went skyrocketing until it touched one thousand dollars a share. The Western Union had lost its case, for several very simple reasons: It had tried to operate a telephone system on telegraphic lines, a plan that has invariably been unsuccessful, it had a low idea of the possibilities of the telephone business; and its already busy agents had little time or knowledge or enthusiasm to give to the new enterprise. With all its power, it found itself outfought by this compact body of picked men, who were young, zealous, well-handled, and protected by a most invulnerable patent. The Bell Telephone now took its place with the Telegraph, the Railroad, the Steamboat, the Harvester, and the other necessities of a civilized