After he had gone, Mr.Morris went to a box hanging against the wall, and turning a handle began talking to the box as if it were a human being.

Though it was just a plain wooden box, the admiral said there was something mysterious about it, for Mr.Morris actually seemed to be carrying on a conversation with it, though the bird could not hear what the box answered, but he felt sure it talked back.
Mr.Morris' residence was a fine stone house with wide porches and sunny bay windows, over which were trained graceful creeping vines.

A boy of about eleven years of age and a very pretty lady stood arm in arm on the broad steps leading up to the front entrance that evening when Mr.Morris and the admiral arrived.

They were Johnny Morris and his mother, who had already learned that Mr.Morris had bought the bird and would bring it when he came to dinner.

The admiral discovered the next day that Mrs.Morris owned a box like the one at the office, into which she talked, and that it was called a telephone.