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great peril, you can reverse it, and it'll swear backwards. That makes a
sailor hump himself!"
"O, I see. Who loads them?--the mate?"
"Yes, if he chooses. Or I'll furnish them already loaded. I can hire an
expert for $75 a month who will load a hundred and fifty phonographs in
50 hours, and do it easy. And an expert can furnish a stronger article,
1
of course, than the mere average uncultivated mate could. Then you see,
all the ships of the world will buy them ready loaded--for I shall have
them loaded in any language a customer wants. Hawkins, it will work the
grandest moral reform of the 19th century. Five years from now, all the
swearing will be done by machinery--you won't ever hear a profane word
come from human lips on a ship. Millions of dollars have been spent by
the churches, in the effort to abolish profanity in the commercial
marine. Think of it--my name will live forever in the affections of good
men as the man, who, solitary and alone, accomplished this noble and
elevating reform."
"
O, it is grand and beneficent and beautiful. How did you ever come to
think of it? You have a wonderful mind. How did you say you loaded the
machine?"
"
O, it's no trouble--perfectly simple. If you want to load it up loud and
strong, you stand right over it and shout. But if you leave it open and
all set, it'll eavesdrop, so to speak--that is to say, it will load
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