and I, to whose single-handed
tenacity the achievement is due, find myself unable in these first full
moments of triumph to concentrate on my every-day affairs.

I can still remember that fresh summer morning when with springy step I set
out to call upon the District Contract Agent for the first time. Innocently
enough I expected to arrange for the installation of a telephone within the
next two or three days. But I recollect that as I ascended the steps of his
premises I became depressed by that House of Usher foreboding, and then,
when I witnessed the way in which an imperturbable official discomfited a
tempestuous gentleman who was giving tongue to a long list of his wrongs,
my carefully rehearsed and resolute address shrivelled on my lips and I
found myself asking tamely for a form.

This form, _plus_ the information that telephones were more speedily
installed where ex-Service men were employed, was the net result of my
first encounter.

And now, as I turn in reminiscent mood to a dusty file, I pause before one
of my early letters to the District Contract Agent: "... If you saw our
staff, who are without exception ex-soldiers, you would say at once that
they are a remarkably fine body of men and deserving of a telephone. They
mark their possessions with their initials in indelible pencil. Between
them they have seen service on every front, from Mespot to Ireland. Some
have been mentioned in despatches, many have figured in Cox's Book of
Martyrs, and our cashier _says_ that he once opened a tin of bully with the
key provided for that purpose. One of our juniors, Major Bays Waller,
O.B.E., who came to us from a Control Office and who advises us on our
filing, says that it is like coming from a home to a home. You must come
round and have a chat with him; you would have _so_ much in common.

"Trusting that you will expedite the little matter of our telephone
installation, and assuring you that the spirit of our staff continues to be
excellent, etc...."

Although this letter was signed "Henry Thomas, James & Sons," the District
Contract Agent's vague reply on the file before me commences: "Sir (or
Madam);" and I feel now, as I did then, that it is not in the best of taste
for him to brag as he does about his telephone and his "Private Branch
Exchange" on the very paper on which he writes to baffled applicants for
installation.

From this time the correspondence is marked by an increasing bitterness on
my side and