He's got
the telephone face.

"Never heard of it, eh? Well, that shows that your powers of
perception are not particularly acute. The telephone face is no longer
a physiognomical freak, but a prevalent expression among the several
thousand unfortunate clerks and business men who find extensive use
for the telephone necessary. It is a distinctive cast of features,
too, which can readily be distinguished from any other by one who can
read faces at all.

"The dyspeptic has a 'face.' His expression is fitful and disgruntled,
but underlying it is a gleam of hope; the insolvent man, harassed by
creditors, has another well-defined type of facial mold. It is haunted
and worried, with a tinge of defiance in it; the owner of the 'bicycle
face' has his features set in lines of deadly resolution; the 'golf
face' displays fanatical enthusiasm and a puzzled look resulting from
a struggle with the vocabulary of the game; the 'poker face' shows
immobility and superstition; the 'telegraph face,' according to a
well-known New York professor, is 'vacant, stoic and unconcerned,' but
the 'telephone face' stands out among all of these in a class peculiar
to itself. There are traces of a battle and defeat marked on it; the
stamp of hope deferred and resignation, yet without that placidity
which usually betokens the acceptance of an inevitable destiny. The
brows are drawn together above the nose, and at times a murderous
glint shows in the half-closed eyes of the possessor.

"The peculiar feature about the man with the 'telephone face' is, that
he always believes the day will come when he will be able to get the
right number and the right man without being told that the 'line's
busy,' 'party does not reply,' or 'phone is out of order.' He is
like the man who always backs the wrong horse, the poet with an 'Ode
to Spring,' or the honest man seeking a political job, continually
defeated, but ever dreaming of ultimate success.

"I know of only one instance in which the dream was realized. A
new girl had been installed in a telephone office without proper
instructions--a most unprecedented case. A bookkeeper, grown gray
in the service of a large mercantile house, picked up his receiver
wearily. It rang the new girl's bell, and like a flash, she said,
'Hello.' The bookkeeper gasped. 'Is that you, Central?' he asked
huskily. 'Yes,' replied the unsophisticated maiden, pleasantly. 'What
number, please?' The old man sat bolt upright and clutched t