She promised faithfully to follow my instructions and about a week later she came into the office with her face wreathed in smiles and eyes shining with joy and gladness. “Oh doctor,” she said, “I could not wait any longer to see you. I just had to come and tell you how wonderful it all is. Why last night my sister-in-law put her arms around my neck and kissed me (something she had never done before in her life) and said she never knew before how dear I was. Everything and even more than you promised has come true and I never was so happy before in all my life, and it is my ‘blessed privilege’ to tell you this. I cannot thank you for words are too inadequate to express my gratitude for what you have taught me.”
THE TELEPHONE BELL
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling went the telephone bell. I was hard at work on an abstract proposition where an interruption of my thought meant chaos for a while. My telephone had the habit of ringing a couple of dozen times a day on calls which were not for me, and when I called up central to complain about it all the satisfaction I received was “Excuse me, please.”
Already my ’phone had rung a number of times this morning, only to be met by central’s “Excuse me, please” when I answered it, and I was in a state of exasperation that almost bordered on a desire to murder some one.
Several times I had almost gotten to the point in which my abstract problem seemed to be solved. Twice, just as I was about to grasp its solution, did the telephone bell ring only for me to hear the old familiar “Excuse me, please.”
I had complained to the management about these mistakes, the poor service, etc. Men had been sent to inspect my ’phone and its connections; many parts of the ’phone had been changed and finally an entire new instrument had been installed, but still the irritation and annoyance of calls not for me continued.
I had scolded central and given her “Hail Columbia” many times because of her alleged carelessness, but all to no avail, and the calls which were not for me still kept coming and my annoyance increased rather than diminished. Nothing I had ever said or done and nothing the Telephone Company seemed able to do appeared to have any effect in stopping these calls.
Merrily my bell rang on from twenty to twenty-five times a day on calls which were mistakes. It seemed as though “Old Nick” himself was using the telephone to see how much he could irritate and annoy me, and here the ting-a-ling-ling-ling of his material representative was once more ringing in my ears and the solution of my problem again gone glimmering.
Impatiently I grabbed the telephone receiver and placed it to my ear, yelling into the transmitter a “Hello” that for its acidity, irritability, impatience and petulance could not be surpassed. I resolved to give central in particular and the Telephone Company in general such a “jacking up” as they would never forget, should it be another call which was not for me, and at the same time order my ’phone taken out as it was proving to be a greater annoyance and trouble than its convenience would balance or offset.
No answer came to my “Hello.” I called again and again in my impatient and irritated state of consciousness. Finally central answered saying, “What number, please?” It was a new voice on my wire; a voice that was filled with friendly feeling and good fellowship; one that unconsciously made union with the universal harmony and so felt only the “good” in everything, that all my irritation, annoyance and sarcasm at once disappeared and I replied in a voice which was new to me so filled with harmony were its tones, “You called me?” “Excuse me, please,” said central, and I hung up my receiver and sat back in my chair without another word.