She tried once more, and once more after that. The capacity of ten words for expressing what one wished to say seemed to decrease with each trial to write the telegram. The operator volunteered his professional help, after he had watched her spoil several blanks. He smiled slightly as he read the one she handed him, gratefully accepting his kind offer.
"You've never sent one before, have you, Miss?"
Arethusa propped her elbows on the high counter, and rested her chin on them so she could regard his work. "No, I haven't," and she smiled down at him so charmingly he could almost have franked that telegram through. "But I thought ten words was oceans."
"No, Miss, it isn't very many." He scratched out the "Dear Timothy," she had written "You don't generally say that."
"You don't! Why, how do you know who it's for?"
"You have the address and that doesn't cost you anything."
Arethusa stood on tip-toe and leaned far over the counter to see what he was doing. She was as close to him as it was possible for her to get with a large piece of furniture in between them.
"Let's see it?" she asked, breathlessly, when he had finished writing.
It read, in the operator's version:—
"Must come to party, very displeased if you do not.