"Well, what in the world have I got to do with the peddling out of early services?" snapped Jones, as he turned and shook up his pillows. "He has to have an answer to his message within fifteen minutes." "Well, let Susan take it," settling back comfortably. "But Susan has gone to mass." "And I suppose that means that I am to be turned out of my bed at daybreak, and canter half a mile!" cried Jones, in a high and excited voice, as he bounced from his bed and began to grope sleepily for his clothes. His toilet was made amidst grumblings of "Confound their early services, why can't they stay in bed like Christians, instead of prowling about, and sending men out in the chilly morning air," etc., etc. Jones's temper was soured for the day, and that night, as he was winding his watch, he said severely, "Jane, I'm going to draw the line at delivering messages. Tom, Dick, and Harry can come here and bellow into the telephone until they are hoarse, but I'll be switched if I'll be messenger boy any longer." But messages continued to come and go, increasing rather than decreasing in frequency. People in the neighborhood fell into the habit of saying to friends in distant parts of the city, when leaving a question open: "Just telephone me when you make up your mind. I haven't a telephone myself, but the Joneses have, and they are very obliging about letting me use it." So the fact that a telephone was owned by an obliging family circulated almost as rapidly as if it had been a lie. There were times when Mrs. Jones hadn't the face to ask Susan to stop her work and carry these messages, so she carried them herself--trying to keep up her self-respect by combining an errand of her own in the same direction. There were a few messages, however, which remained forever indignantly shut within the telephone; as, for instance, that of the little girl, which came in a shrill, piping voice: "Mrs. Jones, will you send your servant over to Mrs. Graham's to ask Milly where she got that perfectly delicious delight she gave me the other day, and tell her to be quick about it, please, for I'm waiting." And another which came in chuffy, distorted, conversational English--regular "chappie" English, very hard to understand, but which she finally straightened out into: "I say there--aw--oh--is that you, Mrs. Jones? Sorry to trouble you, but would you be so awfully good as to send word to Mrs. Bruce--aw--that I'm awfully cut up about it, but I won't be able to dine there to-night. Aw--I wouldn't trouble you, but it's so awfully hot I can't go round to explain to her--you know. Thanks, awfully." The telephone was closed, and the awfully-cut-up young man, whose sole claim on Mrs. Jones was that they had once met at a party, was left to be healed by time. He had for company in his fate the enthusiastic tennis-player, who, in the midst of "a little summer shower," summoned Mrs. Jones. "I want to speak to Flannigan, the gardener." "This is not Flannigan's telephone."