"And who is speaking?" "Mrs. Jones." "Oh, well, Mrs. Jones, I can give my message to you just as well. I want you to tell Flannigan to come and roll the tennis ground at once. He will understand. Tell him right away, please." "Flannigan does not live here." "Well, you can send him word, I suppose," in a surprised and offended voice, "to oblige a _lady_. It is _Miss Mortimer_ who is speaking," and there was an impressive silence. Mrs. Jones remembered Miss Mortimer as a high-stepping young woman whom she had met at a friend's house, and who had given her the impression of taking an inventory of her. So Mrs. Jones took pleasure in replying, "Miss Mortimer probably does not know that she is addressing a private telephone. Good day." But it was Jones, the luckless Jones, who seemed set aside for the cruel buffeting of the telephoning public. One night, which he will ever point to as the wildest and wettest night he has known, he had settled himself into his most comfortable chair, with a pile of new magazines beside him, when he was disturbed by a summons from the telephone. He responded with readiness, for he was rather expecting a call from his partner, and to his cheerful "Hello, old fellow, I'm here," came, in a sputtering and wind-tossed voice, "Will you please tell Mrs. Goodson that as it is so stormy her daughter will not go home to-night?" Jones turned and confronted his wife, and for a time words refused to come. "Well, this is a little too much! Now think of an unknown voice barking at me to go out into a storm like this and tell the Goodsons that their daughter will not be at home to-night!" The Goodsons lived just six squares away. "And what will you do, dear? Why didn't you say plainly that you would not and could not go out into a storm like this--that they must send a messenger?" "They shut me off without giving me time to answer." "Well, call them up. Call them up at once." "Jane, please have some sense. How do I know where Miss Goodson has gadded off to? How do I know what number to call up?" "Well, I just wouldn't go." "Oh, I'll have to. They are friends, and if they are expecting that girl of theirs home to-night and she doesn't come Mrs. Goodson will go out of her mind." So Jones drove himself forth, clad in righteous indignation and a waterproof coat. The cold rain lashed him and the wind belabored his umbrella, and he was more than once obliged to pause under friendly porches to get his breath. At last the home of the Goodsons was reached, and spent and weary he staggered up the steps. Goodson himself opened the door. "Hello, Jones, you're no fair weather friend indeed. Come in, come in." "No, I'm too wet," he answered, pointedly (and he felt like adding "and too mad"). "I only came to tell you that Miss Goodson won't be at home to-night." "My daughter! She is at home. Don't you hear her playing on the piano now? Come into the vestibule, anyway." Jones walked in, with the rain streaming from his coat.