This was the first feeble sign that such a novelty as the telephone business could be established; and no money ever looked handsomer than this twenty dollars did to Bell, Sanders, Hubbard, and Watson.

It was the tiny first-fruit of fortune.
Greatly encouraged, they prepared a little circular which was the first advertisement of the telephone business.

It is an oddly simple little document to-day, but to the 1877 brain it was startling.

It modestly claimed that a telephone was superior to a telegraph for three reasons: "(1) No skilled operator is required, but direct communication may be had by speech without the intervention of a third person.
"(2) The communication is much more rapid, the average number of words transmitted in a minute by the Morse sounder being from fifteen to twenty, by telephone from one to two hundred.
"(3) No expense is required, either for its operation or repair.

It needs no battery and has no complicated machinery.