Child (saying prayers). "Give us this day our daily bread-and-butter."
Governess. "No, dear—not butter." Child. "Marge, then."
LETTERS I NEVER POSTED.
CONCERNING GOOD RESOLUTIONS.
To the girl at the Exchange.
The New Year is upon us and with it comes the determination to mend our bad habits and make serious efforts to turn over a new leaf. Perhaps you have already thought of this and have made some good resolutions; perhaps, on the other hand, you cannot think of anything amiss that needs correcting. In this case will you let me help you? In every other respect you may be perfection, but as an exchange operator, which is the only capacity in which (alas!) I know you, you are often lacking. I have no doubt that you are charming in private life and that we should get on famously if we met at dinner; but you have an irritating way of giving me the wrong number, which I do most cordially hope you will lose during 1921. When I protest, you merely say you are sorry, but what I suggest is that an ounce of careful listening at first is worth tons of sorrow later. Kingston doesn't really sound a bit like Brixton, and yet yesterday, when I asked for a Kingston number, you put me at once on to the same number in the other suburb. Constantly when I say I want 2365 you give me 2356. To give you your due you are always, I will admit, sorry; but ...
Another thing. Sometimes, when you ring me up and I answer, all you do is to ask, "Number, please," as though I had rung you. (It is then that I feel most that I should like to wring you.) When I reply, "But you rang me," you revert to your prevailing regretful melancholy and say, "Sorry you were troubled," and before I can go deeply into the question and discover how these things occur you ring off. Can't you make an effort during 1921 not to do this? Let it be a year of gladness.
Sometimes I am perfectly certain you don't ring up the number I want until after you have asked me once or twice if they have answered. Isn't that so? "I'll ring them again," you say with a kind of resigned adventurousness; but, knowing as I do that they have been waiting for my call, I am not taken in. But what I want to know is—what were you doing instead of ringing up at first? I suppose that these secrets will never be penetrated by the ordinary subscriber outside the sacred precincts; but I wish you would give me fewer of such problems to ponder during the year that is coming.
P.S.—Have you ever considered, with proper alarm, what would happen to a cinema story if a wrong number were provided by the operator, or if any delay whatever occurred? This should make you think.