some one who is capable of receiving this message?"
Now it would seem as if two persons sixty or seventy miles apart might severally fly into a rage and nurse their wrath comfortably without particularly annoying each other at the moment. But not under present conditions; and Nattie turned red and bit her nails excitedly under the displeasure of the distant person of unknown sex, at "X n." But no instrument had yet been invented by which she could see the expression on the face of this operator at "X n," as she retorted, and her fingers formed the letters very sharply;
"Do you think it will help the matter at all for you to make a display of your charming disposition? G. A.—the—."
"I am happy to be able to return the compliment implied!" was "X n's" preface to the continuation of the message.
And now indeed Nattie might have recovered some of her fallen glories, being angry enough to be fiercely determined, had not the owner of the nose again made her presence manifest by the sudden question:
"Do you have a different sound for every word, or syllable, or what?"
And, turning quickly around to scowl to this per-
