The raucous buzz of the telephone in the corner of the room
knocked the music to shatters. I cried out impatiently. It was the
fault of that giant of ineptitude Marigold and his incompetent
satellites, whose duty it was to keep all upstairs extensions
turned off and receive calls below. Only two months before I had
been the victim of their culpable neglect, when I was forced to
have an altercation with a man at Harrod's Stores, who seemed
pained because I declined to take an interest in some idiotic
remark he was making about fish.
"I'll strangle Marigold with my own hands," I cried.
Betty, unmoved by my ferocity, laughed and rose from the piano.
"Shall I take the call?"
To Betty I was all urbanity. "If you'll be so kind, dear," said I.
She crossed the room and stopped the abominable buzzing.
"Yes. Hold on for a minute. It's the post-office"--she turned to
me--"telephoning a telegram that has just come in. Shall I take it
down for you?"
More urbanity on my part. She found pencil and paper on an
escritoire near by, and went back to the instrument. For a while
she listened and wrote. At last she said:
"Are you sure there's no signature?"
She got the reply, waited until the message had been read over,
and hung up the receiver.
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