The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1913-02-27

lars. MI. hlItel HUI ID Iiio NoiieA wv
ing superintendent of the Home Tele-
phone Company For thirty-five
wears he has been working for differ
ent telephone companies in Kansas
City, and it hasn't soured his tenn
per nor worn the edge off his happy
disposition, nor smothered his hearty
laugh. But he laughed once i'm the
wrong place, and that gave him one
of his best stories.
did 1 ever tell you how I miss
ed being a millionaire?' is the way
he begins this story. ''No? Well,
the chance came to me twenty
years ago when I was working for
the old Bell Telephone Company.
It's offices then were at 9Th and Wy
andotte street and we used the old
Blake transmitter, telephone that
had crank in the front of the
box, which you whirled around a
half dozen times to call central. One
of our customers was A. b. StroW-
ger. an undertaken, who had his
place of business on the north side
West 9th street, between Wall and
Wyandotte streets. Stronger had
more trouble with his telephone
than any other man in town, and,
as was the trouble man, all Of his
complaints came to me. Nearly ev-
ery day he would call me up and
tear around about his telephone. l
sent every workman in the office
down there at different times. but
they could never find anything
wrong with his phone, and this al
ways increased the fury of old
Stronger.
=" Whenever your men come my
phone works all right, and as soon
as they go away the dad burned old
phone refuses to work. he used to
say. I tell you, it's the girls at the
switchboard. They've got it in for
me-
s'He became possessed of the idea
that the girl operators were system
atically working against him, and he
was so convinced Of this that he got
to hate them.
"I'm going to put every girl tele-
phone operator out of a. job one of
these days. he said to me one time
over the phone.
This climax came one day when
q friend of his, whose wife had just
died. tried to reach the undertaken
over the phone and could not do
so and then called another under
taker and Stronger lost the patron
age. And so 1 decided to go my
self to Strowger's place and see what
was wrong with his phone. When |
went in he stormed and raved about
the money he had lost and the girl
operators.
''It's those girls in the central
Office that's doing it, Ritterhoff,' he
said to me. But I'm going to get
even with 'em, I'm going to put ev-
cry last one of 'em out of job. Look
at this
"And he pulled out drawer OF
his desk and took out lot of draw
ings and spread them out before me.
"Whatis it? I asked him.
".Well, SIR he said, I've set here
for hours at a time watching that
burned telephone of yours, cursing
them girls that's got it in for me,
and figuring out plan to get even
with 'em. And I've got it. I've got
the thing right there that's going
to throw every one of 'em out OF
a Job. I've invented a telephone that
don't have to have no central switch
board, no girls to operate it, and
there it is
"Wel, sir, I looked over his
plans, and I saw right away that he
had made a wonderful discovery,
and then I tried to find out what
was wrong with his phone, and l
soon found out. He had an old tin
sign with his name on it hanging
out in front, and it got rusty, and ne
had a new one painted and brought
the old sign in the shop and hung
it on the rear wall over his tele-
phone. When his front door open
ed and shut it caused a draught OF
air, and the tin sign hanging on
the wall swung back and forth and
occasionally it would get caught in
the two binding posts that stuck up
above the telephone, and would
short-circuit it so the telephone
would not work until the door
would open and another draught
would swing it free.
"Strowger was not much of an