RASTUS

Waipa Post, Volume V, Issue 223, 24 June 1913, Page 3

RASTUS

GETS THE TELEPHONE

O’Bryen’s on the tiliphoiie, an iv coarse he sez to me wan day — ! “Ye shud hev the tiliphone put in yer house Rastus, and march wicl the rist iv us in the van iv . progress.” Thin the missis, she j came at me too, an Oi had to j capitulate to the inimy. ’Twasan j irrisistible argumint the ould wo- j man had. Sez she, me nay hors all has the latistadjunks to bisnis | an Oi’m loosin trade be not tocin j the mark sez she. Me oppisishun | is gettin all the trade. People i won’t walk round to yer house eny J more, an ask ye with a bow an a j scrape to come an wash there clothes or scrub out the church. Thi’ll go the soide iv the passidge an talk at ye through a hole in the wall. They don’t hiv to put on their best bib an tucker to do that—thev may be standin dishabell.as the pote sez, an they don’t hiv to bow to ye. Tis a grate convaniense, espeshally when yer addressin yer washerwoman to hev the tiliphone. Yes, ses she, the toime was, whin only | wan here an another there iv me customers had the tiliphone—but now they all has thim, and me bisnis is fallin off since me rival in trade has got it in. She’s doin so well she has an understudy to do the work whoile she attinds to the telephone. And another thing, ses Mrs Rastus, I’m out iv the swim intoirely. Whin I git the news its half a day old, while whin yer on the telephone yer gits it fresh j from the factry, so to spake. ’Tis j a new divertion, she ses, when ! yer toired and weary and sit j down fer a rest. Ye can take a j seat near the telephone and put | it to yer ear and there ye are. At j first its a bit confusin, but whin j ye get practiced in pickin out the j voices, she ses, ye can piece it j together and there ye are. Well the telephone’s in and j I've wasted more t4me hangin 1 around to be rung yp than would j take me to all theyplaces 1 expect ; to hear from thiye toimes ovemj and its no gooey ever borrow Arm bob is anyway j he suggisted/it and joints to know if J thiifk nothin else to do but rmfrothc telephone fer me.

1 dun no but what it’ll pay for itbilf in toime. It’ll kape me home from the pictures and other divarsions whin its opened after eight. The other day l was listinin and l heard a woman’s voice say “ what did she wear,”; and a man off on a bye street just alter ses " a pollice—did ve say a polticu doctor —what koind iv a pollice?” And thin some wan ilse ses “ my bins are layin well now since 1 changed their diet and fed thim on--” thin this bye street man Inits in agin and ses “ the baby, 1 say, the baby, doctor, that ye tould me to pollice she’s swallowed.” Thin the

woman’s voice agin “an egg a day since they moulted.”

I had Welsh rabit for supper and drained iv eggs with yolks made in babys and white made in poultices and women dressed in hen’s feathers, and jist as I got that fur the ould woman woke me up sayin turn over Rastus and shout at the wall and not at me. Me numbers two nought two and foive rings and wait ten minits fer the boy to connect us.