Well, the thing
began in this way. A member of our household came in and asked me
to have our house put into communication with Mr. Bagley's downtown.
I have observed, in many cities, that the sex always shrink from
calling up the central office themselves. I don't know why,
but they do. So I touched the bell, and this talk ensued:
CENTRAL OFFICE. (GRUFFY.) Hello!
I. Is it the Central Office?
C. O. Of course it is. What do you want?
I. Will you switch me on to the Bagleys, please?
C. O. All right. Just keep your ear to the telephone.
Then I heard K-LOOK, K-LOOK, K'LOOK--KLOOK-KLOOK-KLOOK-LOOK-LOOK! then
a horrible "gritting" of teeth, and finally a piping female voice:
Y-e-s? (RISING INFLECTION.) Did you wish to speak to me?
Without answering, I handed the telephone to the applicant, and sat down.
Then followed that queerest of all the queer things in this world
--a conversation with only one end of it. You hear questions asked;
you don't hear the answer. You hear invitations given; you hear
no thanks in return. You have listening pauses of dead silence,
followed by apparently irrelevant and unjustifiable exclamations
of glad surprise or sorrow or dismay. You can't make head or tail
of the talk, because you never hear anything that the person at the
other end of the wire says. Well, I heard the following remarkable
series of observations, all from the one tongue, and all shouted
--for you can't ever persuade the sex to speak gently into a telephone:
Yes? Why, how did THAT happen?
Pause.
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