第24章

You are on the point of starting when the telephone catches your eye.You think you will ring him up to make sure he is in.You commence by ringing up some half-dozen times before anybody takes any notice of you whatever.You are burning with indignation at this neglect, and have left the instrument to sit down and pen a stinging letter of complaint to the Company when the ring-back re-calls you.You seize the ear trumpets, and shout--"How is it that I can never get an answer when I ring? Here have Ibeen ringing for the last half-hour.I have rung twenty times."(This is a falsehood.You have rung only six times, and the "half-hour" is an absurd exaggeration; but you feel the mere truth would not be adequate to the occasion.) "I think it disgraceful,"you continue, "and I shall complain to the Company.What is the use of my having a telephone if I can't get any answer when I ring?

Here I pay a large sum for having this thing, and I can't get any notice taken.I've been ringing all the morning.Why is it?"Then you wait for the answer.

"What--what do you say? I can't hear what you say.""I say I've been ringing here for over an hour, and I can't get any reply," you call back."I shall complain to the Company.""You want what? Don't stand so near the tube.I can't hear what you say.What number?""Bother the number; I say why is it I don't get an answer when Iring?"

"Eight hundred and what?"

You can't argue any more, after that.The machine would give way under the language you want to make use of.Half of what you feel would probably cause an explosion at some point where the wire was weak.Indeed, mere language of any kind would fall short of the requirements of the case.A hatchet and a gun are the only intermediaries through which you could convey your meaning by this time.So you give up all attempt to answer back, and meekly mention that you want to be put in communication with four-five-seven-six.

"Four-nine-seven-six?" says the girl.

"No; four-five-seven-six."

"Did you say seven-six or six-seven?"

"Six-seven--no! I mean seven-six: no--wait a minute.I don't know what I do mean now.""Well, I wish you'd find out," says the young lady severely."You are keeping me here all the morning."So you look up the number in the book again, and at last she tells you that you are in connection; and then, ramming the trumpet tight against your ear, you stand waiting.

And if there is one thing more than another likely to make a man feel ridiculous it is standing on tip-toe in a corner, holding a machine to his head, and listening intently to nothing.Your back aches and your head aches, your very hair aches.You hear the door open behind you and somebody enter the room.You can't turn your head.You swear at them, and hear the door close with a bang.It immediately occurs to you that in all probability it was Henrietta.

She promised to call for you at half-past twelve: you were to take her to lunch.It was twelve o'clock when you were fool enough to mix yourself up with this infernal machine, and it probably is half-past twelve by now.Your past life rises before you, accompanied by dim memories of your grandmother.You are wondering how much longer you can bear the strain of this attitude, and whether after all you do really want to see the man in the next street but two, when the girl in the exchange-room calls up to know if you're done.

"Done!" you retort bitterly; "why, I haven't begun yet.""Well, be quick," she says, "because you're wasting time."Thus admonished, you attack the thing again."ARE you there?" you cry in tones that ought to move the heart of a Charity Commissioner;and then, oh joy! oh rapture! you hear a faint human voice replying--

"Yes, what is it?"

"Oh! Are you four-five-seven-six?"

"What?"

"Are you four-five-seven-six, Williamson?""What! who are you?"

"Eight-one-nine, Jones."

"Bones?"

"No, JONES.Are you four-five-seven-six?""Yes; what is it?"

"Is Mr.Williamson in?"

"Will I what--who are you?"

"Jones! Is Mr.Williamson in?"

"Who?"

"Williamson.Will-i-am-son!"

"You're the son of what? I can't hear what you say."Then you gather yourself for one final effort, and succeed, by superhuman patience, in getting the fool to understand that you wish to know if Mr.Williamson is in, and he says, so it sounds to you, "Be in all the morning."So you snatch up your hat and run round.

"Oh, I've come to see Mr.Williamson," you say.

"Very sorry, sir," is the polite reply, "but he's out.""Out? Why, you just now told me through the telephone that he'd be in all the morning.""No, I said, he 'WON'T be in all the morning.'"You go back to the office, and sit down in front of that telephone and look at it.There it hangs, calm and imperturbable.Were it an ordinary instrument, that would be its last hour.You would go straight down-stairs, get the coal-hammer and the kitchen-poker, and divide it into sufficient pieces to give a bit to every man in London.But you feel nervous of these electrical affairs, and there is a something about that telephone, with its black hole and curly wires, that cows you.You have a notion that if you don't handle it properly something may come and shock you, and then there will be an inquest, and bother of that sort, so you only curse it.

That is what happens when you want to use the telephone from your end.But that is not the worst that the telephone can do.A1

"What is it? What do you want?"

No answer, only a confused murmur, prominent out of which come the voices of two men swearing at one another.The language they are making use of is disgraceful.The telephone seems peculiarly adapted for the conveyance of blasphemy.Ordinary language sounds indistinct through it; but every word those two men are saying can be heard by all the telephone subscribers in London.

It is useless attempting to listen till they have done.When they are exhausted, you apply to the tube again.No answer is obtainable.You get mad, and become sarcastic; only being sarcastic when you are not sure that anybody is at the other end to hear you is unsatisfying.