Sometimes I think it would be better to write up my diary in advance, to fill in the year's pages with what I would like to do, and attempt to live up to the prophecy. And yet I have had too many unforeseen pleasures in my life for that. I would rather trust fate than imagination. So, chiefly because I have kept the book for seven years, I shall probably keep it seven years more. It gratifies my conceit to chronicle my small happenings, and somehow, written down in fair script, they seem important. And besides I am a bit anxious to see just how many times a certain name, which has lately begun to make itself prominent, will appear at the top of the pages. I promise to tell you some time, if Celestine is willing!
The Perfect Go-between
Surely the modern invention that has done most to perpetuate Romance is the telephone. The man that, however used to this machine, can take up its ear-piece without a thrill of wonder has no soul. The locomotive, the steamship, the automobile have but made travel a bit more rapid, they have added no new element of mystery. Even the telegraph fails to give any true feeling of surprise. It is no whit more wonderful than that one, after writing a letter and slipping it into a red mail-box, should be handed a reply by a strange, blue-clad gentleman, after many days. A telegraphic despatch does not even hold the handwriting of the sender; it is cold, colourless, metallic.
But a machine that can bring your friend into the same room with you, at a moment's notice, who can deny the poetry of such a victory over space and time! Not until some genius invents a thought-transmitter shall a more stupendous aid to Romance be discovered. For see! It is not only one's friends that are caught in the net of telephone wires, one can drag up a whole city full! I have but to sit down at my desk and call up a number, and he or she must reply. True, I cannot force any one to answer, but if I have the audacity and persistency, it will go hard if I do not find some one who is willing to while away a leisure, inquisitive moment in inconsequent conversation.
It is my privilege to live in a telephone city where the habit is extraordinarily developed. One out of every sixteen of the population is connected to that most amiable of go-betweens, the Central Office. I have the opportunity of investigating some thirty thousand souls at the ridiculously cheap price of five cents per soul! Not only every counting-house and shop, doctor's office and corner grocery has its wire, but every residence with any claims to acquaintance. What Romance gone to waste! For few, it seems, have imagination enough to embrace such unlimited opportunities!
This morning Sonia called me at 8:25, apologizing for her kind-heartedness in letting me sleep when she knew I wished to work. Think of that for an alarm clock--Sonia's voice, ten miles away! So I am awakened by the telephone, I call by telephone, flirt by telephone, shop, market and speculate over the same wire. We do not take long in utilizing the latest invention here in this hurried land--the city is ravaged by Telephonitis. One invites friends to dinner, one makes appointments, one breaks the news of the death of a friend, one proposes marriage--all by means of this little instrument. I know one lady who has her machine connected by flexible wires so that she may talk in bed. She need not be too strict in regard to dress for her interviews--no one ever knows! I know two old men who while away long evenings together playing chess, when the weather is too harsh to leave home. Beside each board stands the faithful receiver; one has but to whisper "K.B. to Q.3" or some such rigamarole into the nickel-plated "extension" and he has checkmated his opponent across the Bay!
With such common intercourse as this, many are the comedies of the telephone. I have myself entertained a visitor with a diversion he will not soon forget. The day he came I took him to my telephone and introduced him in turn to a half-dozen ladies of my acquaintance, who plied him with badinage. We set forth then on a tour of calls, and I enjoyed his several attempts at identifying the voices he had heard over the wire. It is not always easy to recognize a voice and remember it. I remember an unfortunate experience of my own with two sisters which brought a week's embarrassment, for the voices of members of one family do have a marvellous similarity in the telephone, and if one is anxious to call upon Fanny when Elizabeth is out, one must be very sure just which sister one is speaking to when making an appointment.
The necessity for such precaution has led some of my friends to adopt telephone methods which must be extremely amusing to one who could hear both sides of the conversation. In many houses the telephone is situated in the hall, altogether too near the dining-room for any confidential communication. If the questioner is careful he may so word his inquiries that they may be answered by a mere "yes" or "no"; and papa, smoking after dinner, is none the wiser. If the girl finds it impossible to reply in unguarded terms, she has been known to say, somewhat vaguely, "Of course," which conveys to the man at the other end of the wire the fact that she is not alone. Some, too, have more definite codes. Celestine has arranged with me that when she mentions the "Call" it means the forenoon; the "Chronicle" stands for afternoon, while by the "Examiner" I understand that she refers to the evening. If, then, I ring her up and say, "When can you go walking today? I want to be sure not to meet that fool Clubberly." Clubberly, who is at her elbow, hears her reply sweetly, "Really! Yes, I saw it in the "Chronicle"; and how is he to know what it is all about? Oh, he could have his revenge easily enough, were he not an ass, for he might be kissing Celestine (horrid thought) even as she is speaking, for all I could know.
With this romantic battery opposed to her, what chance has poor Mrs. Grundy? What hard-hearted parent can successfully immure his daughter while the copper wire strings out toward her proscribed lover? Here is where love laughs at locksmiths. Were a dozen ineligibles forbidden the house, the moment mamma's back is turned and she has gone out for her round of calls, little daughter takes the telephone off the hook and, presto! she has her room full of clandestine company! Does any rash young man dare ring her up while her parents are near, she has but to say, sweetly, "Oh, you have the wrong number!" and hang up. It is too wonderful. You may lie by telephone, with a straight face, or you may call a man a liar with impunity. If you have no answer ready to an ardent impertinence, you need only say nothing and listen--he is helpless; you need not speak unless you want to. Who made the first telephone made mischief for a thousand years to come!
Rrrrrrrrrrng!!!! There is Celestine ringing me up now! Pardon me if I leave you for a moment, for I think she is going to give me her answer to a very important question. Tremendously important for me! Wish me good luck! I hope no one will be listening!