He wonders "what Job would have done had he lived
in Tokyo and wanted to telephone to the specialist on boils." He
concludes with the following incident: "A lady in Karuiwaza called up
her house in Tokyo, left by the next train, got the call, and talked
to herself in Karuiwaza six hours after she arrived in Tokyo."
A suburban housewife relates overhearing this conversation between her
Cape girl and the one next door:
"How are you, Katje?"
"I'm well; I like my yob. We got cremated cellar, cemetery plumbing,
elastic lights and a hoosit."
"What's a 'hoosit,' Katje?"
"Oh, a bell rings. You put a thing to your ear and say 'Hello,' and
then some one says 'Hello,' and you say 'Hoosit.'"
"There's a story in this paper of a woman that used a telephone for
the first time in eighty-three years."
"She must be on a party line."
The girl at the exchange, after you have waited fully ten minutes:
"They don't answer. What number was it you wanted?"
EXCITABLE PARTY (at telephone)--"Hello? Who is this? Who is this, I
say?"
MAN AT OTHER END--"Haven't got time to guess riddles. Tell me yourself
who you are."
"I believe," said the impatient man, as he put aside the telephone,
"that I'll go fishing.
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