I can still remember that fresh summer morning when with springy step I set out to call upon the District Contract Agent for the first time. Innocently enough I expected to arrange for the installation of a telephone within the next two or three days. But I recollect that as I ascended the steps of his premises I became depressed by that House of Usher foreboding, and then, when I witnessed the way in which an imperturbable official discomfited a tempestuous gentleman who was giving tongue to a long list of his wrongs, my carefully rehearsed and resolute address shrivelled on my lips and I found myself asking tamely for a form.
This form, plus the information that telephones were more speedily installed where ex-Service men were employed, was the net result of my first encounter.
And now, as I turn in reminiscent mood to a dusty file, I pause before one of my early letters to the District Contract Agent: "... If you saw our staff, who are without exception ex-soldiers, you would say at once that they are a remarkably fine body of men and deserving of a telephone. They mark their possessions with their initials in indelible pencil. Between them they have seen service on every front, from Mespot to Ireland. Some have been mentioned in despatches, many have figured in Cox's Book of Martyrs, and our cashier says that he once opened a tin of bully with the key provided for that purpose. One of our juniors, Major Bays Waller, O.B.E., who came to us from a Control Office and who advises us on our filing, says that it is like coming from a home to a home. You must come round and have a chat with him; you would have so much in common.
"Trusting that you will expedite the little matter of our telephone installation, and assuring you that the spirit of our staff continues to be excellent, etc...."
Although this letter was signed "Henry Thomas, James & Sons," the District Contract Agent's vague reply on the file before me commences: "Sir (or Madam);" and I feel now, as I did then, that it is not in the best of taste for him to brag as he does about his telephone and his "Private Branch Exchange" on the very paper on which he writes to baffled applicants for installation.
From this time the correspondence is marked by an increasing bitterness on my side and a level colourlessness on his. Only once did he assume the offensive, which took the shape of a demand for four pounds for possible services to be rendered at some period in the future. At Yuletide I hoped that "during this season of goodwill he would see his way to give instructions for the installation of our telephone," and in the New Year I played once more the ex-Service employees' card:—"... Whatever views you may hold on the policy of the withdrawal of British troops from Russia, we are convinced that you will sympathise with our desire to extend a hearty welcome to a member of our staff on his return to this office from Murmansk; and we feel that, since he served with the R.E. Signals, it would be a graceful compliment to him if we had the telephone installed. We therefore cordially invite your co-operation so that this may take place before his arrival.... The idea of installing a telephone in this office is not in itself a novel one, as you may recollect that the suggestion has cropped up in the correspondence that has passed between us...."
And now, as I have said, the telephone is installed. The instrument is fashioned in a severe style (receiver and mouth-piece mounted on an ebonite column of the Roman Doric Order), and it stands for all to see as a symbol that in the seclusion of our offices we are in touch with the world at large. But as a symbol only it must remain, for the voices of the outer world that call us up as they search for other friends or obstruct us when we in turn are, as it were, groping after ours, have already frayed the temper of our staff. It was inevitable that under such constant irritation these ex-Service men of ours would one day burst into strong military idiom, so we have disconnected our telephone in order to avoid the calamity of losing our lady-typist.
