osive dignity, to some poor victim who
is wiggling his receiver hook: "Please get off this line, whoever you
are. Haven't you any manners? I'm talking, and I'll talk till I get
through." And then, like as not, when she's through, she'll leave the
receiver down so that no one else will be able to talk--thus holding the
line in instant readiness when another fit of conversation comes on.
Seven party lines have revolted in succession and have demanded that
Mrs. Askinson be taken off and wished on to some one else, and Sim is
mighty worried. His wife has lost him so many friends that he doubts if
he will be able to run for the town board next year.

We're a nice, peaceable folk in Homeburg, face to face. But like every
one else, we lay aside our manners when we get on the wires and push and
elbow each other a good deal. Funny what a difference it makes when you
are talking into a formless void to some strange human voice. I've never
said: "Get out of here," to any one in my office yet, but when some one
intrudes on my electric conversation, even by mistake, I boil with rage
and I yell with the utmost fervor and indignation: "Get off this line!
Don't you know any better than to ring in?" And the other person comes
right back with: "Well, you big hog, I've waited ten minutes, and I'll
ring all I want!" And then I say something more, and something is said
to me that eats a little semicircular spot out of the edge of my ear.
It's mighty lucky neither of us knows who is talking. Suppose Carrie
should tell. As I say, Carrie holds us in the hollow of her hand.

But the rubber ear is even worse than the Berkshire manners. A rubber
ear is one that is always stretching itself over some telephone line to
hear a conversation which doesn't concern it. For a long time we were
singularly obtuse about this little point of etiquette in the country.
The fact that all the bells on a line rang with every call was a
constant temptation to sit in when we weren't wanted. We listened to
other people's conversations when we felt like it. It amused us, and why
shouldn't we? We rented our telephone and we had a right to pick it up
and soak in everything that was going through it.

When the exchange was first put in, fifteen years ago, more than one
Homeburg woman used to wash her dishes with the telephone receiver
strapped tightly to her ear, dropping into the conversation whenever she
felt that she could contribute something of interest. As for the