“I know of only one instance in which the dream was realized.  A new girl had been installed in a telephone office without proper instructions—­a most unprecedented case.  A bookkeeper, grown gray in the service of a large mercantile house, picked up his receiver wearily.  It rang the new girl’s bell, and like a flash, she said, ‘Hello.’  The bookkeeper gasped.  ‘Is that you, Central?’ he asked huskily.  ‘Yes,’ replied the unsophisticated maiden, pleasantly.  ’What number, please?’ The old man sat bolt upright and clutched the desk.  ‘Give me purple six double-nine,’ he said, in quavering tones, and his weak form trembled as he spoke.  Nimbly worked the fingers of the uninitiated telephone girl, as she struck a peg in the switchboard and quickly rang a bell.  A voice at the other end responded promptly, and the bookkeeper wiped cold beads of perspiration from his brow before he answered.  ‘Is this Jones & Company?’ he almost shrieked.  ‘Yes,’ came the reply, full and clear, ‘this is Jones talking.’

“A dull thud followed, and, when the other clerks rushed in, they found the old man lying still and cold, his right hand still grasping the receiver of the telephone, which had fallen to the floor beside him, and a smile of the most transcendent happiness they had ever seen, upon his faded lips.”