"Hello!"
"Don't fret," said his own voice patronizingly. "Rosie's going to make up with you."
"How in blazes d'you know what she's going to do?" raged Sam. "She won't marry me with you hanging around! I've been trying to figure out a way to get rid of you—"
"Quiet!" commanded the voice on the telephone irritably. "I'm busy. I've got to go collect the money you've made for us."
"You collect money? I get in trouble and you collect money?"
"I have to," his voice said with the impatient patience of one speaking to a small idiot child, "before you can have it. Listen here. Where you are, it's Wednesday. You're going over to Dunnsville today to fix some phones. You'll be in Mr. Broaddus' law office about half-past ten. You look out the window and notice a fella setting in a car in front of the bank. Notice him good!"
"I won't do it," said Sam defiantly. "I ain't taking any orders from you! Maybe you're me, but I make money and you collect it. For all I know you spend it before I get to it! I'm quitting this business right now. It's cost me my own true love and all my life's happiness and to hell with you!"
"You won't do it?" his own voice asked nastily. "Wait and see!"
So, that morning, the manager told Sam, when he reported for work, to drive over to Dunnsville and check on some lines there. Sam balked. He said there were much more important lines needing repair elsewhere. The manager explained politely to Sam that Mr. Broaddus over in Dunnsville had been taken drunk at a Fourth of July party and fallen out of a window. He'd broken his leg, so it was a Christian duty to make sure he had a telephone in working order in his office, and Sam could get over there right away or else.
On the way to Dunnsville, Sam morosely remembered that he'd known about Mr. Broaddus' leg. He had told himself about it on the telephone.