To-day the telephone has been installed. The members of our staff are going
about their duties in a dazed fashion, and I, to whose single-handed
tenacity the achievement is due, find myself unable in these first full
moments of triumph to concentrate on my every-day affairs.
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.
* * * * *
[Illustration: SOUVENIR-HUNTERS OF THE PAST.
_Scene._--RUNNYMEDE, 1215.]
* * * * *
"Man Wanted to lift 1,200 square yards of Turf at once--_Provincial
Paper._
Before applying for the job our young friend Foozle would like to know
whether he will be required to replace the divot.
* * * * *