Wired Love

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Just a noise, that is all.

But a very significant noise to Miss Nathalie Rogers, or Nattie, as she was usually abbreviated; a noise that caused her to lay aside her book, and jump up hastily, exclaiming, with a gesture of impatience:⁠—

“Somebody always ‘calls’ me in the middle of every entertaining chapter!”

For that noise, that little clatter, like, and yet too irregular to be the ticking of a clock, expressed to Nattie these four mystic letters:⁠—

“B m⁠—X n;”

which same four mystic letters, interpreted, meant that the name, or, to use the technical word, “call,” of the telegraph office over which she was present sole presiding genius, was “B m,” and that “B m” was wanted by another office on the wire, designated as “X n.”

A little, out-of-the-way, country office, some fifty miles down the line, was “X n,” and, as Nattie signaled in reply to the “call” her readiness to receive any communications therefrom, she was conscious of holding in some slight contempt the possible abilities of the human portion of its machinery.

For who but an operator very green in the profession would stay there?

Consequently, she was quite unprepared for the velocity with which the telegraph alphabet of sounds in dots and dashes rattled over the instrument, appropriately

“Had you not better go home and send down someone 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 this persevering questioner into silence, Nattie’s elbow hit and knocked over the inkstand, its contents pouring over her hands, dress, the desk and floor, and proving beyond a doubt, as it descended, the truth of its label⁠—

But not long did Nattie dare give way to her misery. That fatal message was not yet received.

Glancing over the few words she had of it, she read; “Send the hearse,” and then she began anxiously “calling” “X n.”

“Hearse,” looked too serious for trifling. But either “X n’s” attention was now occupied in some other direction, or else he⁠—or she⁠—was too much out of humor to reply, for it was full twenty minutes before came the answering,

“X n.”

At which Nattie said as fiercely as fingers could, “I have been after you nearly half an hour!”

“Have you?” came coolly back from “X n.” “Well, you’re not alone, many are after me⁠—my landlord among others⁠—not to mention a washerwoman or two!”

Then followed the figure “4,” which means, “When shall I go ahead?”

“Waxing jocose, are you?” Nattie murmured to herself, as she replied:

“G. A.⁠—hearse⁠—”

“G. A.⁠—what?”

“Hearse,” repeated Nattie, in firm, clear characters.

To her surprise and displeasure “X n” laughed⁠—the circumstance being conveyed to her understanding in the usual way, by the two letters “H a!”

“What are you laughing at?” she asked.

“At your grave mistake!” was “X n’s” answer, accompanied by another “Ha! To convert a horse into a hearse is really an idea that merits a smile!”

As the consciousness of her blunder dawned upon her, Nattie would gladly have sank into oblivion. But as that was impossible, she took a fresh blank, and very meekly said,

“G. A.⁠—horse⁠—!”

With another laugh, “X n” complied, and Nattie now succeeded in receiving the message without further mishap.

About an hour before the time for closing the office, as she was counting over her cash, and thinking how glad she was that C would be back tomorrow, she became conscious of someone waiting her attention outside, and went forward, scarcely looking at him, expecting, of course, a message. But instead, the individual, who filled the air with a suffocating odor of musk, asked,

“You are the regular operator here, I suppose?”

With a start Nattie looked up, expecting a complaint, an occurrence often prefaced by some like question, and scrutinizing him more particularly, saw a short, rather stout young man, possessing an air of cheap assurance, hair that insisted on being red, notwithstanding the bear’s grease that covered it, teeth all at variance with each other, and seeming to rejoice obtrusively in the fact, and light blue eyes of a most insinuating expression, trimmed around with red.

“Yes,” Nattie replied as she took this survey. “I am.”

“You don’t know me, I suppose?” was the next question.

“No,” Nattie replied with a glance at the large mock diamond pin, and immense imitation amethyst ring he wore; “I certainly do not.”

“I think you are mistaken about that,” he rejoined, smiling at her in a most unpleasantly familiar manner.

Surprised and offended, Nattie drew back haughtily. “I think, rather, you are mistaken,” she said, stiffly. “May I inquire your business?”

With an air of easy confidence and familiar remonstrance, he replied,

“Come, now, don’t freeze a fellow; why, I came to see you. That’s my business and no other!”

“He is drunk,” thought Nattie, indignantly, but before she could reply he added,

But his last words were too ominous, and she was too well acquainted with his peculiarities to flatter herself she was permanently relieved of his company. He had perhaps gone to brush his hair, or take some quieting drops, but she knew he had certainly not gone to stay, and not being exactly in the humor for his company, Nattie resolved to fly ignominiously. Afraid of returning to her own room, lest she might meet him and be taken captive, she quietly retired into Cyn’s bedroom. In a few moments she heard him stumbling over a stool in the parlor, and was just thinking that if he should take it into his head to remain any length of time, she would be in rather a predicament, when to her surprise she heard him say,

“I⁠—I must speak! I⁠—I hope this time I shall remember what I have so often⁠—so often said in the privacy of my own apartment, to⁠—if I may confess it⁠—to a pillow⁠—a pair of pants and a coat⁠—placed in a chair as a poor effigy of⁠—of you, you know. Will you⁠—will you⁠—don’t speak, but let me alone, hear me and let the⁠—the flow of language come!”

He paused, and in the greatest bewilderment, Nattie stared at the opposite wall. Did he by some powerful intuition discern she was within hearing distance, or was he in his disappointment rehearsing to her empty chair?