The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1911-08-08
Il Telegraph
Joke
Ind Hoe 1t Turned
Out
By SCOTT KRAEMER
Copyright by American Press Asso-
By SCOTT KRAEMER
Copyright by American Press Asso-
citation. 1911

There is no more favorable oppor-
tunity for young people of opposite sex
to poke fun at each other than over
telephone or telegraph wire. There
Is a fascination in operating from be-
hind shield rendering one invisible.
A girl will delight to say things to q
man who can't see her and doesn't
know who she is. l was a telegraph
operator when young man, and
noticed this disposition in many a girl
operator with whom / talked over the
wire | am matter of fact sort of
fellow myself and doubt If 1t would
ever have occurred to me to bamboo
zIe girl in this fashion had not the
girl shown a disposition to bamboozle
me.
She who first tried 1t was an oper-
ator at a station about twenty miles
away from me. | was in the town Of
NJ, while the girl was out at G.,
way station some twenty miles dis
tant in the country. She had more
time on her hands than l. and sup
pose this is what set her on to quizzing
me. She started in one night about 8
o'clock after having taken a message
from me, beginning by asking me
I what was going on in town; how
liked NJ; If there was any fun going
ON there and expressing her dislike at
being compelled to live in little way
station &ke G. From this we fell to
talking about ourselves and naturally.
as persons of opposite sex at that age
invariably do, finally drifted on to love
and marriage. From love and mar
riage in general we dropped into spe-
cialties, at last narrowing the topic
down to ourselves.
The girl led me along in the channel
she laid out herself till | admitted
that, marriage being a lottery, would
about as lief marry a girl had no
knowledge of as one l had met and
loved. All | required was to know
that the girl | was to marry DOS
sessed fair amount of good looks.
one thing led to another till it was
arranged that she should mail me her
photograph and | should send her
mine. Then If we were mutually
pleased we might proceed further to-
ward forming an acquaintance with a
view to matrimony.
The next day l looked over my
stock of phOtographs-not of myself,
but my friends-and, selecting one OF
Sam Atkins. the best looking fellow
In the lot. | sent 1t to the girl. Sam
was off at the Spanish-American war
at the time. and trusted to his get
ting shot or dying Of disease so that
might not get into trouble by pass
ing him of for myself In return |
received picture of a rather pretty
girl, who | judged from her features
was full of the Old Nick, the very
one to get up just such complication
as we were entering upon. On her
lips was an engaging smile and in her
eyes very saucy look.
After that the wires began to warm
up with our conversations, till at last
they came to white heat with love
passages. When we had fired lot of
such missiles at each other we began
to talk about meeting. At my pro-
posal to go to see her she cooled down
bit, and it was easy to see that her
exuberance was the result Of fighting
behind masked battery. l made sew
eral propositions to go to see her on a
certain day and hour, but for every
time | set she gave some reason why
It would be inconvenient or impossi-