"No! Some office on the wire is sending to some other office."
The nose elevated itself in surprise.
"Can you hear everything that is sent from every other office?"
"Yes," was the weary reply, as Nattie rubbed her dress.
"What!" exclaimed the owner of the nose, in accents of incredulous wonder. "All over the world?"
"Certainly not! only the offices on this wire; there are about twenty," was the impatient reply.
"Ah!" evidently relieved. "But," considering, "supposing you do not catch all the sounds, what do you do then?"
"Break."
"Break! Break what? the instruments?" queried the owner of the nose, perplexedly, and looking as if that must be a very expensive habit.
"Break the circuit—the connection,—open the key and ask the sending office to repeat from the last word I have been able to catch!"
Then seeing unmistakable evidence of more questions in the nose, Nattie threw the ink-soaked blotting-paper and her last remnant of patience into the waste basket, and added,
"But you must excuse me, I am too busy to be
