I’ve heard his voice, but I can’t place it. Hello! Central! Central! Are you going to keep me waiting all day? What? You can’t trace it? That’s all bosh. Oh! You say it was a local pay station? Well, ring it up at once. What? You don’t know the number—Aw! That don’t go down with me. Give me the chief operator. Operator! Operator!

“Hang it all, she’s hung up again! What time is it anyway? Gosh, hang it, I’ve missed my train. No, I don’t want any coffee. Give me my hat; I must make that train. No, I can’t stop to tell you anything! Where’s my coat? It’s strange you never can help me when I’m in a hurry. Get out of my way, Dorothea! Dang that cat—I believe I’ve broken my toe.”

He was gone, leaving an agitated family and a breathless cat emerging from the lilac bush where he had been savagely kicked.

“Well, anyhow, I bet I can find out who was on that wire,” said Dorothea maturely. “I bet they’ll know down to the drugstore. I bet I can get Dick Drew to tell me. Most everybody phones from the drugstore. They ain’t but two or thee local pay stations.”

“Be still, Dorothea. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” reprimanded her mother sharply. “Don’t you go to talking or you’ll make your father awfully angry. You go wash your hands and get off to school. You’re going to be late. No, Junior isn’t going to stay at home. He’s perfectly able to go to school, and I’m not going to be bothered this morning. I’ve got too much to do to have either of you around.”

The telephone rang again at this moment, and Nannette hastened to answer it.

It was a woman’s voice this time. “Is this you, Joyce? Oh! Is that Mrs. Massey? May I speak to Miss Radway?”

“Why, Joyce isn’t here just now,” answered Nannette sweetly. “Is there any message? Anything I can do for you?”

“Why, no, I guess not, thank you. How soon will Joyce be back?”

“Why, I’m not just sure,” shifted Nannette uneasily. “Couldn’t I give her a message?”

“Well, you might tell her Martha Bryan called up to know if she would take her Sunday school class next Sunday. I know it’s a little hard on her to ask her to do it just now when she’s been through trouble, but she isn’t one to sit down and eat her heart out when there’s work to be done, and I thought perhaps it would help her over a hard day to feel she was doing the Lord’s work. She and her aunt Mary always were ones you could rely on to help. And I wouldn’t ask, only my daughter has been taken sick up at Watsonville, and she wants me. I do hate to go without seeing to my class, and I’m just sure Joyce’ll take it.