Now, on the cable lines they have a much better way of making their little points; and it is really refreshing to note the way they do “fool” their best friends, and it is intensely funny, moreover, to observe how mad their best friends get about it. A few evenings since an attempt was made to send the appended message to Plaister Cove:

“Nicodemus 42½ siboleth wayland ecezereceous oxford Tyndall lowgrade ziphoceriousophy can tab receicacerous licoriceroot evenciyelt ycoyo niy sampson oudmass sympathy lacking hevens wotafule everything wrong in taking advantage our good nature rublind sigglecicity ciceroneous verniedrunggesillschraft 48529 odontucityet tumbleifuevercan—”

How would you like to struggle with that? Of course you wouldn’t; no more did the brave Bostonian now working in Plaister Cove. He broke and broke; then he called for Cottrell, saying, “Cot can send those words to me so I can get ’em.” But when it was attempted he got wilder than before. It wasn’t intended that he should “get it,” and he didn’t. After half an hour’s trying there was an exchange of compliments, and the two offices became intensely personal in their expressions of regard. “Gs” finally said “he would report the matter at headquarters.” Plaister Cove said “‘Gs’ could report and be hanged. It might lose him his situation, but there was no help for it; he might guess at these words until Greenland froze over (it strikes me he said Greenland), and he couldn’t get them unless they were spaced better.”

The matter ended there for the night, but next day “Gs” relieved the anxiety of the Plaister Cove man (who expected, every time he heard the cable-room call, that his discharge was coming) by letting him into the joke, and assuaging his grief at the trick which had been played on him, by saying: “Never mind, Jack, we will come it on Duxbury to-night, and you may help us.” It is a great relief to feel that some one is going to be victimized as badly as we have been—that is, human nature the world over; and so Jack came to think it was a pretty good joke after all, particularly as he was to assist at the coming slaughter.

The next night Boston was asked to put Duxbury and Plaister Cove on the same wire, as he is often asked to do nights, to facilitate the handling of the business by “Gs.” The message given above was addressed to a well known house in Havre, and Leslie proceeded to give it to Duxbury at a moderate rate of speed, and with apparently the greatest care, but in reality mixing up the spaced letters in a manner fearfully artistic and puzzling. The Duxbury man “weakened” perceptibly. No one but those who “took it in” can imagine the degree of merriment the task of transmission elicited. It was never finished, and the upshot of the attempts in that direction was that the victim became as wild as his brother in Plaister Cove had been the night before, compliments and words of fraternal affection being in order, as usual. And if he was indignant before, fancy his boiling wrath when told that the Duxbury men were a set of old grandmothers anyway, and that no trouble was ever experienced in getting business to Plaister Cove—to prove which the tormentor called the latter office and sent the message to Jack at a high rate of speed, the Duxbury man listening meanwhile, and wondering what had happened that he could no longer read what other men took with such facility. The key had hardly closed when “O. K. F.” came back sharp and clear, and “Gs” was happy. But the feelings of that Duxbury man, who had hitherto hugged the flattering unction to his soul that he could take anything in the way of dots and dashes that mortal man can take, I shall not attempt to describe. He has never “dropped,” and never will until he sees this, I presume, and then—

I suspect his wrath toward “Gs” will vanish like the fabric of a dream in the presence of his devouring wish to punch the head of the chronicler of this episode.