The black telephone sported a metal disk with finger-size holes bored 
around its edge. The Constable hooked the phone's handset over his epaulet and 
then began to insert his finger into various of these holes, using them to 
torque the disk around against the countervailing force of a spring. A brief 
but exceedingly cheerful conversation ensued.
Then he hung up the telephone and clasped his hands over his belly, as if he 
had accomplished his assigned tasks so completely that said extremities were 
now superfluous decorations. "It'll be a minute," he said. "Please take your 
time, and don't scald yourselves on that tea. Care for some shortbread?"