TALKATIVE TELEPHONE

Evening Post, Issue 86, 11 April 1936, Page 12

TALKATIVE TELEPHONE

Telephonic Hades in a minor key was loosed at the Central Police Station on Thursday, when the telephone, usually obedient, started to get its own back. An officer lifted the receiver, but before he could dial a number he was assailed by a woman in Murphy Street who appeared to have some little difficulty in explaining concisely what she thought about another person. The telephone was enjoying itself thoroughly, and added more fuel to the confusion by allowing a man in a distant suburb to give his opinion. This person indignantly asserted that his was a private line that cost him so much a quarter, and his conversation had, until the interruption, been equally private. Even if it was the police station he couldn't help it, and anyhow he hadn't done anything. The climax came when the Public Works Department started squabbling with the exchange. The police tactfully decided to let the pandemonium subside before ringing "Complaints." When a constable nerved himself for a further ordeal, "Complaints," ever so far away, mashed two other simultaneous conversations, and then a long-distance line had something to say. The police were left patiently wearing out forefingers and pleading for just one chance to say; a few. words.