“Hello,” said her husband's voice.
“John,” said Mary, almost in a whisper, “for English free and unadorned, commend me to a little boy's grandmother!”
Two laughs met over the wire, then two receivers clicked.
One day Mary came in from a walk and noticed at once, a vacant place on the wall where the Farmers' 'phone had hung. She had heard rumors of a merger of the two systems and had fervently hoped that they might merge soon and forever.
“Look! Mamma,” said Gertrude, pointing to the wall.
“Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
One telephone is taken away!”
she chortled in her joy.
(The small boy of the household had been reading “Alice” and consequently declaiming the Jabberwock from morning till night, till its weird strains had become fixed in the various minds of the household and notably in Gertrude's.)