"No, I said, he 'WON'T be in all the morning.'"

You go back to the office, and sit down in front of that telephone and
look at it. There it hangs, calm and imperturbable. Were it an
ordinary instrument, that would be its last hour. You would go straight
down-stairs, get the coal-hammer and the kitchen-poker, and divide it
into sufficient pieces to give a bit to every man in London. But you
feel nervous of these electrical affairs, and there is a something about
that telephone, with its black hole and curly wires, that cows you. You
have a notion that if you don't handle it properly something may come
and shock you, and then there will be an inquest, and bother of that
sort, so you only curse it.

That is what happens when you want to use the telephone from your end.
But that is not the worst that the telephone can do. A sensible man,
after a little experience, can learn to leave the thing alone. Your
worst troubles are not of your own making. You are working against time;
you have given instructions not to be disturbed. Perhaps it is after
lunch, and you are thinking with your eyes closed, so that your thoughts
shall not be distracted by the objects about the room. In either case
you are anxious not to leave your chair, when off goes that telephone
bell and you spring from your chair, uncertain, for the moment, whether
you have been shot, or blown up with dynamite. It occurs to you in your
weakness that if you persist in taking no notice, they will get tired,
and leave you alone. But that is not their method. The bell rings
violently at ten-second intervals. You have nothing to wrap your head up
in. You think it will be better to get this business over and done with.
You go to your fate and call back savagely--

"What is it? What do you want?"

No answer, only a confused murmur, prominent out of which come the
voices of two men swearing at one another. The language they are making
use of is disgraceful. The telephone seems peculiarly adapted for the
conveyance of blasphemy. Ordinary language sounds indistinct through
it; but every word those two men are saying can be heard by all the
telephone subscribers in London.

It is useless attempting to listen till they have done. When they are
exhausted, you apply to the tube again. No answer is obtainable. You get
mad, and become sarcastic; only being sarcastic when you are not sure
that anybody is at the other end to hear you is unsatisfying.

At last, after a quart