their fellow beings; then with
the courage of despair, she for the fourth time "broke" "X n," saying,
with inky impression on the instrument,

"Excuse me, but you will have to wait! I am all ink, and I am being
cross-examined!"

Having thus delivered herself, she turned a deliberately deaf ear to "X
n's" response, which, judging from the way the movable portion of the
"sounder" danced, was emphatic.

"A little new milk will take that out!" complacently said the owner of
the nose, watching Nattie's efforts to remove the ink from her dress
with blotting-paper.

"Unfortunately I do not keep a cow here!" Nattie replied, tartly.

Not quite polite in Nattie, this. But do not the circumstances plead
strongly in her excuse? For, remember, she was not one of those
impossible, angelic young ladies of whom we read, but one of the
ordinary human beings we meet every day.

The owner of the nose, however, was not charitable, and drew herself up
loftily, as she said in imperative accents,

"You did not answer my question! Do you have to learn the sound of each
letter so as to distinguish them from each other?"

Nattie constrained herself to reply, very shortly,

"Yes!"

"Can you take a message and talk to me at the same time?" pursued the
investigator.

"No!" was Nattie's emphatic answer, as she looked ruefully at her dress.

"But your instrument there is going it now. Ain't they sending you a
message?" went on the relentless owner of the nose.

At this Nattie turned her attention a moment to what was being done "on
the wire," and breathed a sigh of relief. For "X n" had given place to
another office and she replied,

"No! Some office on the wire is sending to some other office."

The nose elevated itself in surprise.

"Can you hear everything that is sent from every other office?"

"Yes," was the weary reply, as Nattie rubbed her dress.

"What!" exclaimed the owner of the nose, in accents of incredulous
wonder. "All over the world?"

"Certainly not! only the offices on this wire; there are about twenty,"
was the impatient reply.

"Ah!" evidently relieved. "But," considering, "supposing you do not
catch all the sounds, what do you do then?"

"Break."

"Break! Break what? The instruments?" queried the owner of the nose,
perplexedly, and looking as if that must be a very expensive habit.

"Break the circuit--the connection,--open the key and ask the sending
office to repeat from the last word I have been a