Invention of the telephone hardly a commercially practical telephone in the modern sense. Thomas Edison tested the Reis equipment and found that "single words, uttered as in reading, speaking and the like, were perceptible indistinctly, notwithstanding here also the inflections of the voice, the modulations of interrogation, wonder, command, etc., attained distinct expression." In 1947, the Reis device was tested by the British company Standard Telephones and Cables (STC). The results also confirmed it could transmit and receive speech with good quality (fidelity), but relatively low intensity. At the time STC was bidding for a contract with Alexander Graham Bell's American Telephone and Telegraph
The Stolen Invention Deering's invention and is greatly impressed with it. Cobleigh offers Deering a small amount of money for the invention, but Deering refuses to accept it. Then Cobleigh, having failed to get his invention by fair means, determines to secure it by foul. He drugs Deering, and the result of the poison is to make the inventor temporarily insane. While in this condition, Cobleigh has Deering transferred to an insane asylum. Then he forges the inventor's name to the bill of sale and thinks that his crime will never be discovered. Deering's daughter, Grace, failing to induce her sweetheart, Tom Reynolds,