iled down to the
quick by an assortment of petty worries. (Of course, no office should be
run like this, but it sometimes happens in the best of them.)

Some one has said that we are all like islands shouting at each other
across a sea of misunderstanding, and this was long before telephones
were thought of. It is hard enough to make other people understand what
we mean, even with the help of facial expression and gestures, and over
the wire the difficulty is increased a hundred fold. For telephoning
rests upon a delicate adjustment between human beings by means of a
mechanical apparatus, and it takes clear thinking, patience, and
courtesy to bring it about.

The telephone company began its career some few years ago unhampered by
the traditions to which the earlier corporations were slave, the old
"public be damned" idea. Their arbitrary methods had brought them to
grief, and the new concern, with a commendable regard for the lessons
taught by the experience of others, inaugurated a policy of usefulness,
service, and courtesy. The inside history of the telephone is one of
constant watchfulness, careful management, and continuous improvement;
and every improvement has meant better service to the public. (We are
not trying to advertise the telephone company. We realize that it has
been guilty, like every other business, of manifold sins.)

Even the fact that there is a telephone girl instead of a telephone boy
is due to the alertness and good business sense of the company. To put a
boy before a switchboard and expect him not to pull it apart to see how
it was made; or to place him in a position to entertain himself by
connecting the wrong parties and listening to the impolite names they
called each other and expect him not to do it, would be expecting the
laws of nature to reverse themselves. The telephone company tried
it--for a while. They discovered, besides, that a boy will not "take"
what a girl will. It makes no difference what goes wrong with a
connection, the subscriber blames the operator when many times the
operator, especially the one he is talking to, has had nothing to do
with it. The girls have learned to hold their tempers (not always, but
most of the time), but when boys had charge of the switchboards and the
man at the end of the wire yelled, "You cut me off!" and the youngster
had not, he denied it hotly: "You're a liar! I didn't!" The subscriber
would not stand for this, angry words flew back and fort