"No, that is to be regulated. The time allowed for each separate use will be short, and if any abuse the privilege they will be cut off."
"Humph! Do you expect one central to manage it all?"
"Yes, one officer, but not one girl. I shall have four people, all told, two girls for day hours and two men for night hours. I intend to have them work in relays—four hours off and four on. It is too nervous a strain for longer hours than that. The night operators will have a cot for the one off duty, so that if anything unusual happens the waking one can call the other. I think it must be doleful to stay alone in such a place during those gruesome night hours. I couldn't have it at all."
Dalton laughed outright.
"Positively, Miss Lavillotte, you are too funny! Do you expect to do away with everything disagreeable in your model village?"
"I wish I could, but I do not hope for that. Disagreeable people, who oppose one in everything, will always exist, I fear." Her tone was innocently sad. "But I do mean to try and eradicate what is unnecessarily disagreeable, if scheming can do it. And now, if you are through laughing, Mr. Dalton, I will tell you how I propose to pay for this telephone service without feeling it so severely as you seem to think I shall."
"I am listening, madam."
"Well, I have made a contract, only awaiting your approval and signature, to furnish the glass insulators and the jars, so many thousand a year—wait! I have the figures here somewhere. I never could remember figures—ah! here it is—in exchange."
"You have? Well, I declare! You really do show aptitude for business, I'll have to own."
"Don't I?" laughing with as much pleasure as a child that has turned scolding into praise. "I'm delighted about it in more ways than one. It will give employment to our unskilled hands, who are now idle half the time. Even the children can turn a penny on their holidays, if they like."