“How is it that I can never get an answer when I ring? Here have I been ringing for the last half-hour. I have rung twenty times.” (This is a falsehood. You have rung only six times, and the “half-hour” is an absurd exaggeration; but you feel the mere truth would not be adequate to the occasion.) “I think it disgraceful,” you continue, “and I shall complain to the Company. What is the use of my having a telephone if I can’t get any answer when I ring? Here I pay a large sum for having this thing, and I can’t get any notice taken. I’ve been ringing all the morning. Why is it?”
Then you wait for the answer.
“What—what do you say? I can’t hear what you say.”
“I say I’ve been ringing here for over an hour, and I can’t get any reply,” you call back. “I shall complain to the Company.”
“You want what? Don’t stand so near the tube. I can’t hear what you say. What number?”
“Bother the number; I say why is it I don’t get an answer when I ring?”
“Eight hundred and what?”
You can’t argue any more, after that. The machine would give way under the language you want to make use of. Half of what you feel would probably cause an explosion at some point where the wire was weak. Indeed, mere language of any kind would fall short of the requirements of the case. A hatchet and a gun are the only intermediaries through which you could convey your meaning by this time. So you give up all attempt to answer back, and meekly mention that you want to be put in communication with four-five-seven-six.
“Four-nine-seven-six?” says the girl.
“No; four-five-seven-six.”