A MYSTERY SOLVED.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 563, 29 November 1915, Page 9

A MYSTERY SOLVED.

A telephone mystery that, for two j months, had baffled the telegraph engineer's staff has been solved in Auckland. Some time ago a merchant in the city complained of the peculiar behaviour of his telephone. It worked quite satisfactorily while he was in his office, lie said, but as soon as he went out, all communication with the exchange generally ceased. He said that when he left his office he usually switched the wire across to the clerk's room, and the switch was carefully examined, but it was fcfund that almost always, in the owner's absence, neither of the two telephones would work. During two months telephone linesmen and engineers paid between 20 and 30 visits to this office, and overhauled the instruments and wires, but still the extraordinary behavious of the telephone continued. Then, one day recently, Mr B. M. Baird, chief telegraph engineer, was passing, and^he called, and asked the merchant if there was any improvement. "None whatever,'-' was the reply. "What do you do when you' leave the offiee?" asked Mr Baird.

"Just push the switch over, and go away," said the merchant. Mr Baird asked, him to leave 'the office in the, ordinary way, and the merchant got up, pushed over the switch—and laid his mental pen across the brass terminals, or screw-knobs, on the top of the telephone! The mystery was solved. The merchant, a careful, methodical man, always laid his pen down in the same place, and Mr Baird explained that it had always shortcircuited the installation, and cut off. communication with the exchange. "But," the merchant protested,. "I have been putting my pen in the same place. for years.'' Enquiry, however, showed that for years he had used a porcupine quill, which will not conduct .electricity, but that two'months before he had adopted a metal p'enholder,with the interesting result described.