THE GAME OF THE TELEPHONE.
True sportsmen will regret Mr. ILLINGWORTH'S statement, made recently in the House, when he said, "I have every expectation that the [telephone] service will improve."
By "improve" he no doubt meant that when we ring up a number in future we shall simply get it; that people who want us will be able to get us, and so on. It is a dismal prospect.
I only hope the improvement will be delayed until I get my own back. I have been playing rather a bad line lately, and only this morning lost a set by one game to two.
The operator won the first game before I could get into my stride. She rang me up three times in five minutes, and each time put me on to nobody. This was a very bad start, and I determined that I must at least give her a game. So the third time I held on, mechanically knocking the semi-circular ring arrangement up and down. There is always a chance that your signal may be working, and it annoys the operator. But she beat me by a swift stroke.
"What number do you want?" she asked cynically. I said, "Well played, Sir—Madam!" Then she rubbed it in with a parting shot: "Sorry you have been terroubled," she said, and cut me off. Love—one.