, 1889-10-06
coNveRsINo BY TELEGRAPH.
An Operator Says He Does Not Hear the
Click Of the Instrument.

Click of the Instrument.
DO / hear the click of my instru-
ment3" said a telegraph operator when
asked what was the sensation of re-
ceiving a message and writing it out
at the same time. "Well, / suppose /
do, else | could not take the message,
but the sound does not make a notice
able impression on my ear. In fact, l
am never conscious of the fact that
there is a click. l do not associate
the actual dot or dash with a letter.
To me it is a letter itself. So when |
am receiving it is precisely the same
as II some n was talking TO me.
Most of the messages come along so
rapidly, you know, that they make a
running conversation 1t is not pre-
cisely as if you were talking to me
here, but rather as if you sat in one
corner of the room and spoke to me.
This is so true than when a question
is asked an operator fancies that he
hears the rising of the voice at the end
of the sentence. This prevents one
from being overcome by the terrible
monotony of the thing, for l often get
interested in the messages. When /
am receiving a graphic newspaper ac-
count OF any incident l feel as if some
one was telling it to me. Perhaps it
Is more real to me han one who reads
1t afterward.
sometimes when my wire is not at
work l lie back in my chair and doze
of. When another operator begins
TO call me the effect is the same as if
he spoke my name in my ear, repeat
ing it I've and over again. l do not
associate the call with anything but
the idea it represents. That is why
the little pleasantries which two oper-
ators exchange do not seem so unsym-
pathetic to us as people think they are.
Ihave had men laugh at me when l
told them that L had just greet
ed a fellow operator after getting
him. The thing struck them as
being ludicrous. He heard moth
ing but the metallic snap. 1t of
ten happens that you lose track of a
man for q long time. Some day he
hobs up again at the other end of the
wire. You don't discover who it is
until the message is over the wire, per-
haps. Then you say 'Hullo, where
have you been; how are your just
about as you would ifyou met him on
the street.
"Then you get to know some man
whom you have never seen. Youta talk
Win MN, say hullo ana 'good-by
and get well acquainted with him in
time. You wonder what he looks
like, whether he is tall or short, and
such things. Some day he changes,
or you change, for operators are al
ways moving around, you meet him
and you are friends on the spot. OF
course, when you know a man person
ally and talk with him, the conversa-
ton is all the moro natural. But you
mustn't get the idea that operators say
much ver the wires at the same time.
When work is pressing we jump from
one message TO another without vast
ing much time.
Can | recognize certain men by
their touch on the key2 No, 1 can't
say that l can. But there are some
men who are like lightning, and l
usually find out very soon whether or
not the fast man of an Office is on the
other end. Then there are men who are
terribly slow, so hat 1 feel as if 1 was
listening to a drawing voice. l can
tell when l have taken two words
whether the sender is a good or a poor
operator New York Tribune.