The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1894-08-13
THAT HELLO GIRL.
SHE EXPRESSES HERSELF FREELY AND
IN PICTURESQUE LANGUAGE.


IN PICTURESQUE LANGUAGE.
Tells Her Impressions, Drawn From Es-
perlence, with the Brutcs and the Jays.
She L. Rather Too Fresh to Be Taken as
a Fair sample of the Phone Girl.
1t took long time and much trouble,
but at last the reporter did personally see
and talk with a telephone girl. In what
exchange she works. whether she Is tall or
short, light or dark, chows gum or lives
In New York, the reporter will never di-
vulgc. That girl talked under a pledge
Of absolute secrecy as to her identity, and
nothing can nor shall be said which will
disclose anything more about her than the
feet that She Is an experienced operator
and has worked in number Of the ex
changes. The meeting was brought about
by "A diplomatic third person, and the hello
girl knew that she was going to he inter
viewed for the purposes Of this story. ;
That was "a little unfortunate, because she
was very shy Of her Information, to begin
with. This worr of after n bit however,
and Miss Hello at last plainly showed the
satisfaction she felt in freeing her mind on
the subject of the person at the other end e
of the wire Then she talked with great
deal Of vigor, animation and refreshing
candor.
why, say" she said after her conf
dcncc had been won and she felt that her
identity was absolutely secure, ''if only
knew men as | meet them over the wire,
l would believe that they are all brutes
and some OF them also jaysl Why, say,
thoy talk about our being fresh. Well,
we uin't fresh long, If We ever are, be-
cause you're called down too quick by the
manager or his assistant If you get fresh
over the wire. But there amt any one
got u bag Of salt to sprinkle on the people
who talk to us 1t doesn't seem TO make any
difference how much IA man uses the tclc-
phone, ho never seems TO get any sense in
his head about it. Now, just as likely as
not you have tclephoncd and scolded
central because they couldn't give you the
number you wanted. When central has
rung up number for you, or rung up
the exchange where she is going TO get
that number, she couldn't do any more IL
she owned the telephone company. But,
say, that doesn t make any difference. Nine
men out of ten, nine times out of ten, will
begin jawing Us because we can't get the
connection Then If we try to explain
why we can't they threaten to report us to
the manager, and a lot of them do it too"
"But you said some men in addition to
being hrutcs, which is a more or less IA
milinr fact, are also jays Now, just how
are they jays by telcphone'" the reporter
asked
Miss Hello responded: why, say
didn't you ever try to get comic with
telephone girls That's what lots Of men
do and they are more fun for us than
pay day. | don't mean business men
down town or any men while in their Of
ficcs, because they arc generally talking
where people can hear them. But when l
worked in an exchange where we were
central for a lot of residence telephones it
seemed as If every man who rang us up
had nothing else to do but get gay.
1--WE have lots of fun with men who are
talking through their house telephones and
who always get comic If they have TO ,-ait
for their connections. You have no lea
how much we get TO know about ose
mcn and the kind Of houses they live in,
and even just where their telephones are
! located. And you can tell when there is
! any one in the room with them too. /
remember one night when / had told
man TO please wait he began to get comic
right away. | was onto him, and began
stringing him just little bit, you know,
because the night manager was out of the
Office, and l had n chance to jolly him
little. l could tell from his tone, even be-
fore he began to talk silly, that he was
alone in the room, and protty soof he be-
gan asking me about my nights off and
If | wouldn't like some tickets to roof
garden. suddenly his voice changed, and
he began yelling like cross bear: Hello,
central / say, you, central Why don't
you attend to businessf' Why, say, knew
what had happened just rs soon us he did
that His wife had come into the room,
and laughed at him over the telephone,
and said ASK wifey how she'd like to
have you send me those roof garden
tickets Bang He hung up the receiver,
and ! knew just as well as / was alive
that he had got ratified and WAS afraid his
wife might hear what said, although we
were half IA mile apart That happened
lots Of times. say, l wonder what makes
SO many men ask telephone girls what is
the color of their hair. When was in
that uptown exchange, I'll bet a hundred
different men asked me that question after
they had called up central and had TO
wait. It's lots Of fun to jolly the guys,
| but of course you can only do IL In the
smaller exchanges, where there Is no as
sistnnt manager and the manager is some
| tlmos out OF course you can keep up
| jolly for some time by Just making an
swcrs that seem all right to the manager
If he happens to overhear you, because he
can't tell what you are answering.
Women Why, say, they're the sau-
| ciest things you ever saw. II they can I get
the number they want right away, they
begin to scream and shout and threaten,
and mostly wind up by saying that the
nasty old thing isn't any good. and hang
up the receiver just about the time you
want 10 give them their number.
| do we listen muchf Why, say, I
think that's an awful foolish question.
| Do you suppose we have any time to lis
tenI On the levelf Well, say, on the level,
then, just because we are hello girls, we
arc human beings just as hard. and If 1t
is at night, and we are not very busy, and
something very interesting Is going
through, or we hear voice telling some
one that he won't be home until late on
account of being busy with the correspond
encc to go by the next days steamer, and
then little later hear that same voice
telling very different sort of story TO
some one clsc-why, say, Of course we're
human"
And thus prattled on that Miss Hello.
she was young person of an observant
nature, which makes it all the morc un-
fortunate for mankind that at the conclu-
sion Of her story she added the remark
with which she had begun-that II she
only knew men as she met them over the
wires she would believe them all brutes
and some Of them jays.-New York Sun.
Wealthy, but Destitute.
Two little girls Gertrude and Ethal uafl