"You've got one admirer," she said to Tietjens. "'Punched that rotten strap,' he goes on saying, 'like a gret ol' yaffle punchin' a 'ollow log!'" He's had a pint of beer and said it between each gasp. She continued to narrate the quaintnesses of Joel which appealed to her; informed Tietjens that "yaffle" was Kentish for great green woodpecker; and then said: "You haven't got any friends in Germany, have you?" She was beginning to clear the table. Tietjens said: "Yes; my wife's in Germany; at a place called Lobscheid." She placed a pile of plates on a black japanned tray. "I'm so sorry," she said, without an expression of any deep regret. "It's the ingenious clever stupidities of the telephone. I've got a telegraph message for you then. I thought it was the subject for mother's leader. It always comes through with the initials of the paper which are not unlike Tietjens, and the girl who always sends it is called Hopside. It seemed rather inscrutable, but I took it to have to do with German politics and I thought mother would understand it. . . . You're not both asleep, are you?" Tietjens opened his eyes; the girl was standing over him, having approached from the table. She was holding out a slip of paper on which she had transcribed the message. She appeared all out of drawing and the letters of the message ran together. The message was: "Righto. But arrange for certain Hullo Central travels with you. Sylvia Hopside Germany." Tietjens leaned back for a long time looking at the words; they seemed meaningless. The girl placed the paper on his knee, and went back to the table. He imagined the girl wrestling with these incomprehensibilities on the telephone. "Of course if I'd had any sense," the girl said, "I should have known it couldn't have been mother's leader note; she never gets one on a Saturday." Tietjens heard himself announce clearly, loudly and with between each word a pause: "It means I go to my wife on Tuesday and take her maid with me."