your call (a meter is provided for each
subscriber) and at the same time lights the two tiny lamps again--a
signal to the inspector, if one happens to be watching, that the call is
properly recorded. All this takes long to read, but it is done in the
twinkling of an eye. "Central's" hands are both free, and by long
practice and close attention she is able to make and break connections
with marvellous rapidity, it being quite an ordinary thing for an
operator in a busy section to make ten connections a minute, while in
an emergency this rate is greatly increased.

[Illustration: "CENTRAL" MAKING CONNECTIONS
The front of a small section of a central-station switchboard. Each dot
on the face of the blackboard is a subscriber's connection. The cords
connect one subscriber with another. The switches throwing in the
operator's "phone", and the pilot lamps showing when a subscriber wishes
a connection, are set in the table or shelf before her.]

The call of one subscriber for another number in the same section, as
described above--for instance, the call of 4341 Eighteenth Street for
2165 Eighteenth Street--is the easiest connection that "central" has to
make.

As it is impossible for each branch exchange to be connected with every
individual line in a great city, when a subscriber of one exchange
wishes to talk with a subscriber of another, two central operators are
required to make the connection. If No. 4341 Eighteenth Street wants to
talk to 1748 Cortlandt Street, for instance, the Eighteenth Street
central who gets the 4341 call makes a connection with the operator at
Cortlandt Street and asks for No. 1748. The Cortlandt Street operator
goes through the operation of testing to see if 1748 is busy, and if not
she assigns a wire connecting the two exchanges, whereupon in Eighteenth
Street one plug is put in 4341 switch hole; the twin plug is put into
the switch hole connecting with the wire to Cortlandt Street; at
Cortlandt Street the same thing is done with No. 1748 pair of plugs. The
lights glow in both exchanges, notifying the operators when the
conversation is begun and ended, and the operator of Eighteenth Street
"central" makes the record in the same way as she does when both numbers
are in her own district.

Besides the calls for numbers within the cities there are the
out-of-town calls. In this case central simply makes connection with
"Long Distance," which is a separate company, though allied with the
city com