"G. M. (good morning) C!"
Apparently "C" had his or her ears on the alert, for immediately came the response,
"G. M., my dear!"
A form of expression rather familiar for so short an acquaintance, that is, supposing "C" to be a gentleman. "But then, people talk for the sake of talking, and never say what they mean on the wire," thought Nattie. Besides, did not the distance in any case annul the familiarity? Therefore, without taking offense, even without comment, she asked:
"Are we to get along to-day without quarreling?"
"Oh! it is you, is it, 'N'?" responded "C," "I thought so, but wasn't quite sure. Yes, you, may 'break' at every word, and I will still be amiable."
"I should be afraid to put you to the test," replied Nattie, with a laugh.
"Do you then think me such a hopelessly ill-natured fellow?" inquired
"C."
"Fellow!" triumphantly repeated Nattie. "Be careful, or you will betray yourself!"
"Ha, ha!" laughed "C." "Stupid enough of me, wasn't it? But it only proves the old adage about giving a man rope enough to hang himself."
"Don't mention old adages, for I detest them!" said Nattie. "Especially that one about the early bird and the worm. But I fear, as a _mys_tery, you are not a success, Mr. 'C'."
"A very bad attempt at a pun," said "C." "I trust, however, you will not desert me, now your curiosity is satisfied, Miss 'N.'?"
"Don't be in such a hurry to miss me. I have said nothing yet to give you that right," Nattie replied.
"Nevertheless, it's utterly impossible not to miss you. I missed you last night after you had gone home, for instance. "But you, a great, hulking fellow! No, indeed! In my mind's eye—"
But what was in "C's" mind's eye did not just then appear, for at this interesting point some one at Nattie's window, saying. "I would like to send a message," obliged her reluctantly to interrupt him with,
"Excuse me a moment, a customer is waiting."
She then turned as much of her attention as she could separate from "C" to the customer, enabled, perhaps, to answer the volley of miscellaneous questions poured upon her with unusual affability, on account of the settlement—and in the right direction!—of that vexed question of "C's" sex.
But she could not help thinking, as she glanced at the message finally written, and handed to her that had the writer attended a little more to the spelling-book, and a little less to the accumulation of diamond rings, it might have been a very wise proceeding. But perhaps
"Meat me at the train," was sufficiently intelligible for all purposes.
"What was it about your mind's eye?" Nattie asked over the wire, at the first opportunity.
"C" was again on the alert, without being called, for the answer came, after a moment, just long enough for him to cross the room, perhaps.
"As I was saying, in the eye aforesaid, me thinks I see a tall slim young lady with blue eyes and light hair, and dimples that come into her cheeks when I stupidly betray my sex."
As "C" said this, Nattie glanced into the glass just over her head at the reflection of her face. A face whose expression was its charm; that never could be called pretty, but that nevertheless suggested a possibility—only a possibility, of being handsome. For there is a vast difference between pretty and handsome. Pretty people seldom know very much; but to be handsome, a person must have brains; an inner as well as an outer beauty.
"How fortunate it is you are not near enough to be disenchanted!" Nattie replied to "C." "Your mind's eye is very unreliable. Tall! why, I'm only five feet! never was guilty of a dimple, and my eyes are of some dreadfully nondescript color."
"If you are only five feet, you never can look down on me, which is a great consolation," "C" responded. "And for the rest imagination will clothe the unseen with all possible beauty and grace."
"I am sure I am perfectly willing you should imagine me as beautiful as you please," replied Nattie, "As long as we don't come face to face, which in all probability we never shall, you will not know how different from the real was the ideal."
"Please don't discourage me so soon, for I hope sometime we may clasp hands bodily as we do now spiritually, on the wire—for we do, don't we?" said "C" asserting before he questioned.
"Certainly—here is mine, spiritually!" responded Nattie, without the least hesitation, as she thought, of the miles of safe distance between. "Now may I ask—"
"Oh! come, come! this will never do! You are getting on altogether too fast for people who were quarreling so yesterday!" broke in a third party, who signed, "Em." and was a young lady wire-acquaintance of Nattie's, some twenty miles distant.
"You think the circuit of our friendship ought to be broken?" queried
Nattie.
"Ah! leave that to time and change, by which all circuits are broken," remarked "C."
"Yes, but such a sudden friendship is sure to come to a violent end," Em. said. "Suppose now I should report you for talking so much—not to say flirting—on the wire, which is against the rules you know?"
"In that event I should know how to be revenged", replied "C." "I should put on my 'ground' wire and cut off communication between you and that little fellow at Z!"
Em. laughed, and perhaps feeling herself rather weak on that point, subsided, and Nattie began, "Sentiment—"
But the pretty little speech on that subject she had all ready was spoiled by an operator—who evidently had none of it in his soul—usurping the wire with the prefaced remark,
"Get out!"
The wire being unusually busy, this was all the conversation Nattie and
"C" had during the day, but Just before six o'clock came the call,
"B m—B m—B m—X n."
"B m," immediately responded Nattie.
"I merely want to ask for my character before saying g. n. (good night).
Haven't I been amiable to-day?" was asked from X n.
"Very, but there is no merit in it, as Mark Tapley would say," replied
Nattie. "You had no provocation."
"Now I flattered myself I had 'come out strong!' Alas! what a hard thing it is to establish one's reputation," said "C," sagely; "but I trust to Time, who, after all, is a pretty good fellow to right matters, notwithstanding a dreadful careless way he has of strewing crow's feet and wrinkles."
"Has he dropped any down your way?" asked Nattie.
"Hinting to know my age now, are you? Oh! curiosity! curiosity! Yes, I think he has implanted a perceptible crow's foot or two; but he has spared the hairs of my head, and for that I am thankful! Did you ever see an aged operator? I never did, and don't know whether it's because electricity acts as a sort of antidote, or whether they grow wise as they grow old, and leave the business. The case is respectfully submitted."
"Your organs of discernment must be very fully developed," Nattie replied. "It is fortunate I am too far away to be analyzed personally; but I don't think I will stay after hours to discuss these things to night. I am tired, for I have had a run of disagreeable people to-day. So g. n."
"G. n., my dear," said the gallant "C," in whose composition bashfulness seemed certainly to have no part. But then—as Nattie previously had thought—he was along way off.
It