Some years ago I chanced to be in a small Alabama town, among people I had never seen before. My mission was a delicate one, demanding keen judgment and careful diplomacy. It became absolutely necessary for me to communicate promptly and privately with my wife, who at the time was on a steamship somewhere off Cape Hatteras. I could not use a telephone, but I found a man whom I could trust. So I telegraphed to Charleston and instructed my wife to call a certain ’phone number in this Alabama town. The message was repeated by wireless, and far off on the wind-blown ocean it reached the ship and was delivered. When the good lady reached Charleston she called up the number I had given, delivered her message to good ears, and it was turned over to me accurately in writing. One can readily see how tragic it would be if the interpreter for the deaf man chanced to be careless or criminal, for I should regard it as no less than a criminal act for one purposely to deceive a deaf person. I have employed strangers of all colors and conditions in this position of trust, and it is pleasant to think that most of them have been efficient and true in the emergencies. For it _is_ an emergency when one is suddenly called upon to act as interpreter in the affairs of a stranger. This matter of using the telephone has become so simple to most people that it is hard to realize the dire complications it may involve for the deaf. Once I was delegated to meet my sister and daughter at the old Long Island ferry in New York. They had spent the day on the island, and were to come back at night. Before the Pennsylvania Railroad dug its tunnels under the East River passengers came across from Long Island City at Thirty-fourth street. The landing and the transfer to street-cars was a jumble at best. It was about the easiest place in the world to miss your friends in daylight, while in the evening, under the dim lights, hunting for human express packages was much like going through a grab-bag. My passengers did not arrive. There was no sign of them anywhere among the masses of humans which boat after boat poured out. I began to be worried, for neither of them had been over the route before. I found that the train they had named had arrived on time. Either they had not come or the great city had swallowed them. It was plainly a case where the telephone became a necessity, but I could not go to the nearest ’phone and call up the friends with whom they had been staying. I had to find some proxy who would deliver my message and give me an honest report. All this was serious business at a time when the papers were full of stories of abductions and insults to girls. Whom could I trust in such a situation?