(Continued from p. 53.)

It's Not Done.

It is significant that few really important matters are completed over the wire. Few men would risk a proposal by this method. For one thing a suitor would probably find when it was all over and he was wiping the perspiration off his brow, that he had been on the wrong number; and, even supposing he was on the right number and drew the lucky marble—well, ask yourself! At such times the point is inevitably reached when the voice is practically superfluous.

Jiltings are different, and the telephone is probably the ideal instrument for severing foregone conclusions. A jilting must go with a bang and end where it finishes, or there is danger of the parties arguing themselves into another engagement. But for important transactions like borrowing a tenner the telephone is useless; it is far too easy for the other party to ring off, when you can't make him feel a mean hound by fixing him with the moist sad eye of impecunious melancholy.

What did you say? Ring off? Well, perhaps you're right.