VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE FRIENDS.
With perhaps one or two less frowns than usual at the destiny
that compelled her to forego any morning naps, and be up and stirring at the
early hour of six oclock, Nattie arose next morning, aware of a more than
accustomed willingness to go to the office. And immediately on her arrival
there, she opened the key, and said, without calling, just to ascertain if her
far-away acquaintance would notice it,
“G. M. (good morning) C!”
Apparently “C” had his
or her ears on the alert, for immediately came the
response,
“G. M., my dear!”
A form of expression rather familiar
for so short an acquaintance, that is, supposing “C”
to be a gentleman. “But then, people talk
for the sake of talking, and never say what they mean
on the wire,” thought Nattie. Besides,
did not the distance in any case annul the familiarity?
Therefore, without taking offense, even without comment,
she asked:
“Are we to get along to-day without quarreling?”
“Oh! it is you, is it, ’N’?”
responded “C,” “I thought so, but
wasn’t quite sure. Yes, you, may ‘break’
at every word, and I will still be amiable.”
“I should be afraid to put you
to the test,” replied Nattie, with a laugh.
“Do you then think me such a
hopelessly ill-natured fellow?” inquired “C.”
“Fellow!” triumphantly
repeated Nattie. “Be careful, or you will
betray yourself!”
“Ha, ha!” laughed “C.”
“Stupid enough of me, wasn’t it? But
it only proves the old adage about giving a man rope
enough to hang himself.”
“Don’t mention old adages,
for I detest them!” said Nattie. “Especially
that one about the early bird and the worm. But
I fear, as a mystery, you are not a success,
Mr. ’C’.”
“A very bad attempt at a pun,”
said “C.” “I trust, however,
you will not desert me, now your curiosity is satisfied,
Miss ’N.’?”
“Don’t be in such a hurry
to miss me. I have said nothing yet to
give you that right,” Nattie replied.
“Nevertheless, it’s utterly
impossible not to miss you. I missed you last
night after you had gone home, for instance. “But
you, a great, hulking fellow! No, indeed!
In my mind’s eye
But what was in “C’s”
mind’s eye did not just then appear, for at this
interesting point some one at Nattie’s window,
saying. “I would like to send a message,”
obliged her reluctantly to interrupt him with,
“Excuse me a moment, a customer is waiting.”
She then turned as much of her attention
as she could separate from “C” to the
customer, enabled, perhaps, to answer the volley of
miscellaneous questions poured upon her with unusual
affability, on account of the settlement and
in the right direction! of that vexed question
of “C’s” sex.
But she could not help thinking, as
she glanced at the message finally written, and handed
to her that had the writer attended a little more to
the spelling-book, and a little less to the accumulation
of diamond rings, it might have been a very wise proceeding.
But perhaps
“Meat me at the train,”
was sufficiently intelligible for all purposes.
“What was it about your mind’s
eye?” Nattie asked over the wire, at the first
opportunity.
“C” was again on the alert,
without being called, for the answer came, after a
moment, just long enough for him to cross the room,
perhaps.
“As I was saying, in the eye
aforesaid, me thinks I see a tall slim young lady
with blue eyes and light hair, and dimples that come
into her cheeks when I stupidly betray my sex.”
As “C” said this, Nattie
glanced into the glass just over her head at the reflection
of her face. A face whose expression was its charm;
that never could be called pretty, but that nevertheless
suggested a possibility only a possibility,
of being handsome. For there is a vast difference
between pretty and handsome. Pretty people seldom
know very much; but to be handsome, a person must
have brains; an inner as well as an outer beauty.
“How fortunate it is you are
not near enough to be disenchanted!” Nattie
replied to “C.” “Your mind’s
eye is very unreliable. Tall! why, I’m
only five feet! never was guilty of a dimple, and my
eyes are of some dreadfully nondescript color.”
“If you are only five feet,
you never can look down on me, which is a great consolation,”
“C” responded. “And for the
rest imagination will clothe the unseen with all possible
beauty and grace.”
“I am sure I am perfectly willing
you should imagine me as beautiful as you please,”
replied Nattie, “As long as we don’t come
face to face, which in all probability we never shall,
you will not know how different from the real was
the ideal.”
“Please don’t discourage
me so soon, for I hope sometime we may clasp hands
bodily as we do now spiritually, on the wire for
we do, don’t we?” said “C”
asserting before he questioned.
“Certainly here is
mine, spiritually!” responded Nattie, without
the least hesitation, as she thought, of the miles
of safe distance between. “Now may I ask
“Oh! come, come! this will never
do! You are getting on altogether too fast for
people who were quarreling so yesterday!” broke
in a third party, who signed, “Em.” and
was a young lady wire-acquaintance of Nattie’s,
some twenty miles distant.
“You think the circuit of our
friendship ought to be broken?” queried Nattie.
“Ah! leave that to time and
change, by which all circuits are broken,” remarked
“C.”
“Yes, but such a sudden friendship
is sure to come to a violent end,” Em. said.
“Suppose now I should report you for talking
so much not to say flirting on
the wire, which is against the rules you know?”
“In that event I should know
how to be revenged”, replied “C.”
“I should put on my ‘ground’ wire
and cut off communication between you and that little
fellow at Z!”
Em. laughed, and perhaps feeling herself
rather weak on that point, subsided, and Nattie began,
“Sentiment
But the pretty little speech on that
subject she had all ready was spoiled by an operator who
evidently had none of it in his soul usurping
the wire with the prefaced remark,
“Get out!”
The wire being unusually busy, this
was all the conversation Nattie and “C”
had during the day, but Just before six o’clock
came the call,
“B m B m B m X
n.”
“B m,” immediately responded Nattie.
“I merely want to ask for my
character before saying g. n. (good night). Haven’t
I been amiable to-day?” was asked from X n.
“Very, but there is no merit
in it, as Mark Tapley would say,” replied Nattie.
“You had no provocation.”
“Now I flattered myself I had
‘come out strong!’ Alas! what a hard thing
it is to establish one’s reputation,” said
“C,” sagely; “but I trust to Time,
who, after all, is a pretty good fellow to right matters,
notwithstanding a dreadful careless way he has of strewing
crow’s feet and wrinkles.”
“Has he dropped any down your way?” asked
Nattie.
“Hinting to know my age now,
are you? Oh! curiosity! curiosity! Yes, I
think he has implanted a perceptible crow’s foot
or two; but he has spared the hairs of my head, and
for that I am thankful! Did you ever see an aged
operator? I never did, and don’t know whether
it’s because electricity acts as a sort of antidote,
or whether they grow wise as they grow old, and leave
the business. The case is respectfully submitted.”
“Your organs of discernment
must be very fully developed,” Nattie replied.
“It is fortunate I am too far away to be analyzed
personally; but I don’t think I will stay after
hours to discuss these things to night. I am
tired, for I have had a run of disagreeable people
to-day. So g. n.”
“G. n., my dear,” said
the gallant “C,” in whose composition bashfulness
seemed certainly to have no part. But then as
Nattie previously had thought he was along
way off.
It must be confessed “C”
could hardly fail to have been flattered had he known
how full Nattie’s thoughts were of him, as she
went home that night. A little foolish in the
young lady, who rather prided herself on being strong-minded,
this deep interest; but hers was a lonely life, poor
girl, and “C” was certainly entertaining
“over the wire,” whatever he might be
in a personal interview of course, not very
likely to occur. No! it was all “over the
wire!”
As she reached her own door, absorbed
in these meditations, she heard the sound of a merry
laugh over in Mrs. Simonson’s, and saw a large
trunk in the hall. From this she inferred that
Miss Archer had arrived, a fact Miss Kling confirmed,
with uplifted eyebrows, and the remark,
“There must be something wrong
about a young woman who has three immense trunks!”
Although Nattie felt a desire to make
this newcomer’s acquaintance, it was less strong
than it might have been had she arrived a week sooner;
for it was undoubtedly true that the interest she had
in her new, invisible friend far exceeded that towards
a possible visible one. Such is the power of
mystery!
The office now possessed a new charm
for her. To the surprise of an idle clerk in
an office over the way, who had always noted how particular
she was to arrive at exactly eight A. M., and to leave
precisely at six P. M., she suddenly began to appear
before hours in the morning, and to stay after hours
at night. Of course this benighted person was
not aware that by so doing she secured quiet chats
with “C,” uninterrupted, and without being
told in the middle of some pretty speech to “Shut
up!” or to " Keep out!” by some soured
and inelegant operator on the line, to whom the romance
of telegraphy had long ago given place to the monotonous,
poorly-paid, everyday reality.
And it came to pass that “C”
soon shared all her daily life, thoughts and troubles.
Annoyances became lighter because she told him, and
he sympathized. Any funny incident that occurred
was doubly funny, because they laughed over it together,
and so it went on.
That “good-night, dear,”
previously unchallenged, became a regular institution
and still, on account of those long miles between them,
Nattie made only a faint remonstrance when his usual
morning salutation grew into “Good-morning,
little five-foot girl at B m!” then was shortened
to “Good-morning, little girl!”
And all this time it never occurred
to them that excepting “N” was for Nattie,
and “C” for Clem, they knew really nothing
about each other, not even their names.
Thus the acquaintance went on, amid
much banter from the before-mentioned “Em.,”
and interruptions from disgusted old settlers.
It was by no means to the satisfaction
of Quimby, that Miss Rogers should thus allow the
telegraphic world to supersede the one in which he
had a part. That intimacy with Miss Archer, of
which he had dreamed, as a means of improving his
own acquaintance with her towards whom his susceptible
heart yearned, did not make even a beginning.
In fact, what with Nattie being engaged all day, and
stopping after hours for a quiet talk with “C,”
and Miss Archer having many evening engagements, the
two had never even met. And how a young man was
to make himself agreeable in the eyes of a young lady
he only caught a glimpse of occasionally, was a problem
quite beyond solution by the brain of Quimby.
Two or three times, in his distraction
of mind, he had stood in very light clothing, about
Nattie’s hour of returning home, full twenty-five
minutes at the outer door of the hotel, with a cold
wind blowing on him. But Nattie, utterly unconscious
of this devotion, was enjoying the conversation of
“C;” and so at last, half frozen, poor
Quimby was compelled to retreat, his object unaccomplished.
He would willingly have wandered about the halls for
hours, and waylaid her, had it not been that the fear
of those two terrific ones, Miss Kling and Mr. Fishblate,
“catching him at it,” prevailed over all
other considerations. As for going to her office,
Quimby, in his bashfulness, dared not even walk through
the street containing it, lest she should penetrate
his motives, and be offended at his presumption.
Under these circumstances he began to despair of ever
having the opportunity, to say nothing of the ability,
of making an impression, when one afternoon he chanced
to meet Miss Archer in the vicinity of Nattie’s
office, and was instantly overwhelmed by a brilliant
idea; that was to ask Miss Archer to whom
he had talked much of Nattie during their short acquaintance if
she would call on her with him, omitting the fact
that he dared not go alone.
Miss Archer, a little curious to see
the lady with whom, she was secretly convinced, Quimbv
was in love, readily consented to the proposition;
and so it came to pass that Nattie was interrupted
in an account she was giving “C” of a
man who wanted to send a message to his wife, and
seemed to think “My wife, in Providence,”
all the address necessary, by the unexpected apparition
of Quimby, accompanied by a stylish and handsome young
lady.
“I I beg pardon,
if I if I intrude, you know,” he stammered,
beginning to wish he had not done it, as Nattie, with
an “Excuse me, visitors,” to “C,”
rose and came forward. “But I I
brought Miss Archer! To make you acquainted,
you know.”
“I am indebted to you for that
pleasure,” Nattie said, with a smile, as she
took the hand Miss Archer extended, saying,
“I have heard Quimby speak about
you so much, I already feel acquainted.”
Quimby blushed, and nervously fingered his necktie.
“Such near neighbors so
lonesome thought you ought to know each
other,” he said confusedly.
“Yes, I began to fear we were
destined never to meet,” Nattie replied, as
she held the private door open for her visitors to
enter, a proceeding contrary to rules, but she preferred
rather to transgress in this way, than in manners,
and leave her callers standing out in the cold.
“I don’t know as we ever
should, had it not been for Quimby,” said Miss
Archer, glancing curiously around the office.
“I believe I never was in a telegraph office
before. Don’t you find the confinement rather
irksome?”
“Sometimes,” Nattie replied;
“but then there always is some one to talk with
on the wire,’ and in that way a good deal of
the time passes.”
“Talk with on the
wire?” queried Miss Archer, with uplifted eyebrows.
“What does that mean? Do tell me. I
am as ignorant as a Hottentot about anything appertaining
to telegraphy. Nearly all I know is, you write
a message, pay for it, and it goes.”
Nattie smiled and explained, and then
turning to Quimby, asked,
“You remember my speaking about
‘C’ and wondering whether a gentleman or
lady?”
“Oh, yes!” Quimby remembered, and fidgeted
on his chair.
“He proved to be a gentleman.”
“Oh, yes; exactly, you know!”
responded Quimby, looking anything but elated.
“It must be very romantic and
fascinating to talk with some one so far away, a mysterious
stranger too, that one has never seen,” Miss
Archer said, her black eyes sparkling. “I
should get up a nice little sentimental affair immediately,
I know I should, there is something so nice about
anything with a mystery to it.”
“Yes, telegraphy has its romantic
side it would be dreadfully dull if it
did not,” Nattie answered.
“But now really,”
said Quimby, who sat on the extreme edge of the chair,
with his feet some two yards apart from each other;
“really, you know, now suppose just
suppose, your mysterious invisible shouldn’t
be just what you think, you know. You
see, I remember one or two young men in telegraph
offices, whose collars and cuffs are always soiled,
you know!”
“I have great faith in my ‘C,’”
laughed Nattie.
“It would be dreadfully unromantic
to fall in love with a soiled invisible, wouldn’t
it,” said Miss Archer, with an expressive shrug
of her shoulders.
Nattie colored a little, and answered hastily:
“Oh! it’s only fun, you
know;” at which Quimby brightened, and Miss
Archer inquired gayly,
“Pour passer lé temps?”
Nattie nodded in reply, as she took
a message from a lady, who had only a few words to
send, but found it necessary to ask about fifteen
questions, and relate all her recent family history,
concluding with the birth of twins, before being satisfied
her message would go all right, a proceeding
that made Quimby stare, and afforded Miss Archer much
amusement.
“Oh! that is nothing!”
Nattie said, in answer to the latter’s significant
laugh, when the customer had retired. “Some
very ludicrous incidents occur almost daily, I assure
you. Truly, the ignorance of people in regard
to telegraphy is surprising; aggravating too, sometimes.
Just imagine a person thinking a telegraph office is
managed on the same principle as those stores where
they at first charge double the value of the goods,
for the sake of giving people the pleasure of beating
them down! It was only yesterday that a woman
tried to coax me to take off ten cents, and then snarled
at me because I wouldn’t, and declared she would
patronize some other office next time, as if it mattered
to me, except to wish she might! And there was
some one calling on the wire with a rush message all
the time she was detaining me!”
“They think you ought to be
harnessed with a punch, like a horse-car conductor,”
said Miss Archer, laughing, and added,
“I wish I knew how to telegraph,
I would have a chat with your ‘C.’
I am getting very much interested in him!”
Quimby twirled his hat uneasily.
“But I beg pardon,
but he may be a soiled invisible, you know!”
he hinted, seemingly determined to keep this possibility
uppermost.
Before Nattie could again defend her
“C” a woman, covered with cheap finery,
thrust her head into the window.
“How much does it cost to telegram?” she
asked.
“To what place did you wish to send?”
Nattie inquired.
With a look, as if she considered
this a very impertinent question, the woman replied,
with a slight toss of her head,
“It’s no matter about
the place, I only want to know what it costs to telegram!”
“That depends entirely on where
the message is going,” answered Nattie, with
a glance at Miss Archer.
“Oh, does it?” said the
woman, looking surprised. “Well, to Chicago,
then.”
Nattie told her the tariff to that city.
“Is that the cheapest?”
she then asked. “I only want to send a few
words, about six.”
“The price is the same for one
or ten words,” said Nattie rather impatiently.
The woman gave another surprised stare.
“That’s strange!”
she said incredulously. “Well” moving
away “I’ll write then; I am
not going to pay for ten words when I want to send
six.”
“That is a specimen of the ignorance
you were just speaking of, I presume,” laughed
Miss Archer, as soon as the would-be sender was out
of hearing.
“Yes,” replied Nattie,
“it’s hard to make them believe sometimes
that everything less than ten words is a stated price,
and that we only charge per word after that number.
And, speaking of ignorance, do you know I once actually
had a letter brought me, all sealed, to be sent that
way by telegraph.”
Miss Archer laughed again, and Quimby inquired,
“I I beg pardon,
but did I understand that the last came within your
experience?”
“Yes,” Nattie replied,
“and I had a young woman come in here once, who
asked me to write the message for her, and after I
had done so, in a somewhat hasty scrawl, she took
it, looked it all over critically, dotted some ‘i’s,’
and crossed some ‘t’s,’ I all the
time staring, amazed, and wondering if she supposed
I could not read my own hand-writing, then scowled
and threw it down disgustedly saying, ’John
never can read that! I shall have to write it
myself. He knows my writing!’”
“Can such things be!” cried Miss Archer.
“But,” asked Quimby, from
his uncomfortable perch on the edge of the chair,
“Isn’t there a a something a
fac-simile arrangement?”
“I believe there is, but it
is not yet perfected,” replied Nattie.
“Ah, well! then the young woman
was only in advance of the age,” said Miss Archer;
“and what with that and the telephone, and that
dreadful phonograph that bottles up all one says and
disgorges at inconvenient times, we will soon be able
to do everything by electricity; who knows but some
genius will invent something for the especial use of
lovers? something, for instance, to carry in their
pockets, so when they are far away from each other,
and pine for a sound of ‘that beloved voice,’
they will have only to take up this electrical apparatus,
put it to their ears, and be happy. Ah! blissful
lovers of the future!”
“Yes! I yes,
that would be a good idea!” cried Quimby eagerly;
then instantly fearing he had betrayed himself, turned
red, and clutched at the mustache that eluded his
grasp. Miss Archer looked at him and smiled,
and Nattie was about to expound further when she heard
“C” asking on the wire,
“N, haven’t your visitors gone yet?
Tell them to hurry!”
“You wouldn’t say so,”
Nattie responded to him, “if you knew what a
handsome young lady one of my two visitors is.
We have been talking about you, too.”
“Introduce me, please do,” said “C.”
“What are you doing, now?”
asked Miss Archer, watchful of Nattie’s smiling
face.
Leaving the key open, Nattie explained,
to Quimby’s unconcealed dissatisfaction; but
Miss Archer was delighted.
“Oh! do introduce me! Can you any way?”
she said.
Nattie nodded affirmatively, and taking
hold of the key, wrote, “She is as anxious as
you are. So allow me to make you acquainted with
Miss Archer, a young lady with the prettiest black
eyes I ever saw!”
“Is she an operator?” asked “C.”
“Doesn’t know a dot from a dash,”
Nattie answered him.
“Then tell her in plain language,
that this is the happiest moment of my life, and also
that black eyes are my especial adoration!”
“What have you been telling
him about me, you dreadful girl?” queried Miss
Archer, shaking her head remonstratingly when this
was repeated to her. “But you may inform
him I am delighted to make his acquaintance, and hope
he has curly hair, because it’s so nice to pull!”
“With the hope of such a happy
occurrence, I will hereafter do up my hair in papers,”
“C” replied when Nattie had repeated this
to him. “But do not slight your other visitor.”
“Shall I introduce you?”
asked Nattie holding the key open, and turning to
Quimby, who had betrayed various symptoms of uneasiness
while this conversation was going on, and who now
grasped his hat firmly, as if to throw it at the little
sounder that represented the offending “C,”
and answered,
“Oh, no! I really
I I beg pardon, but it’s really no
matter about me you know!”
“He says he is of no consequence,” Nattie
said to “C.”
“He!” repeated “C,”
“a he, is it? Ought I to be jealous?
Is it you, or our black-eyed friend who is the attraction?”
Nattie replied only with a ha!
“Is he talking now?” asked
Miss Archer, mindful of Nattie’s smile, and
nodding towards the clattering sounder, at which Quimby
was scowling.
“No, some other office is sending
business now, so our conversation is suspended,”
answered Nattie, as much to Quimby’s relief as
to Miss Archer’s regret.
“I shall improve the acquaintance,
however,” the latter said. “I am very
curious to know how he looks, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I do not suppose I
ever shall,” Nattie answered.
“Then you I beg pardon,
but you never expect to see him?” queried Quimby,
with great earnestness.
“In all probability we never
shall meet. I think I should be dreadfully embarrassed
if we should,” Nattie replied, as she handed
the day’s cash to the boy who just then came
after it. “Face to face we would really
be strangers to each other.”
Quimby evinced more satisfaction at
this than the occasion seemed to warrant, as Nattie
noticed, with some surprise, but several customers
claiming her attention, all at once, and all in a hurry,
she was kept too busy for some time, to think upon
the cause.
As soon as she was at leisure, Miss
Archer, with the remark that they had made an unpardonably
long call, arose to go.
But you must certainly come again,
“Nattie said, cordially, already feeling her
to be an old friend.
“Indeed I shall,” she
answered, in the genial way peculiar to her. “You
have a double attraction here, you know. Can I
say good-by to ‘C?’”
“I fear not, as the wire is
busy,” replied Nattie. “But I will
say it for you as soon as possible.”
“Yes, tell him, please, that
I will see him I mean, hear the clatter
he makes again soon: You, I shall see at the
hotel, I hope, now we have met.”
“Oh, yes!” Nattie replied.
“I am very much indebted to Quimby for making
us acquainted.”
“Oh! really now, do you mean
it?” exclaimed Quimby, with sudden delight.
“I am so glad I’ve done something right
at last, you know! Always doing something wrong,
you know!” then hugging his hat to his breast,
and speaking in a confidential whisper, he added,
to the great amusement of the two girls, “I
have a presentiment a horrible presentiment I’m
always making mistakes, you see. I’m used
to it, but I couldn’t get used to that,
you know that some day I shall marry the
wrong woman!”
So saying, and with a last glance
of implacable dislike at the sounder, Quimby bowed
awkwardly, and departed with the laughing Miss Archer.
Soon after their departure, “C” asked,
“Has Black-Eyed Susan gone?”
“Yes,” responded Nattie.
“She left a good-by for you, and means to improve
your acquaintance.”
“Thrice happy I! But about
this he? Who is this he? I want to know all
about him. Is he a hated rival?”
“Ha! I never heard him
say so, but I will ask him if you wish. He lives
in the same building with me, and brought Miss Archer,
a fellow-lodger, down to introduce her.”
“Do you ever go to balls, concerts,
theaters, or to ride with him?” asked “C,”
who seemed determined to make a thorough investigation
of matters.
“Dear me! No! He never asked me!”
“Do you wish he would?” persisted “C.”
“Of course I do!” replied Nattie, somewhat
regardless of truth.
“It is my opinion I shall be
obliged to come and look after you,” “C”
replied, at this admission.
“But you wouldn’t know
whether you were looking after the right person or
not, when you were here!” Nattie said, with a
smiling face and sparkling eyes turned in the direction
of an urchin,’ flattening his nose against her
window-glass, who immediately fled, overwhelmed with
astonishment, at being, as he supposed, so smiled upon.
“And why wouldn’t I?” questioned
“C.”
“Because I should recognize
you immediately, and should pretend it was not I,
but some substitute,” replied Nattie.
“You seem to be very positive
about recognizing me. Is your intuitive bump
so well-developed as all that?” asked “C.”
“Yes,” Nattie responded.
“And then you know there would be a twinkle in
your eye that would betray you at once.”
“Indeed! We will see about
that, young lady. But now, as a customer has
been drumming on my shelf for the past five minutes,
in a frantic endeavor to attract my attention, and
has by this time worked himself into a fine irascible
temper, because I will not even glance at him, I must
bid you good-night, with the advice, watch for that
twinkle, and be sure you discover it!”