A CRAZY TELEPHONE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 938, 9 April 1880, Page 3

A CRAZY TELEPHONE.

The Telephone oceaaiohilljr goes crazy. A reporter of the ‘ World ’ happening to call recently in a shoe store, between which and its wholesale manufactory a telephone has been fconstructedj was amazed to behold the genial proprietor with face aflame and eyes dilating dancing a hornpipe, while to his ears he held the speaking tube of the instrument. “What the blank, blank, blank does the idiot mean ?” he exclaimed to the clerks, who imiably clustered around him. One does not always get a chance to see a shoe manufacturer dance. Suddenly changing the tube from his car to his mouth, he shouted out, “ Ilaug your salt fish ; I tell you to have those shoes made to button.” An interval of silencs . “No, not mutton ; button,” he shrieked. More silence, during which the shoe-dealer kept the instrument to his ear and seemed to the lookers on to be drawing through it fire and brimstone, so red in tile face he drew. Presently, in a rage, he dropped the handles and disappeared into the inner office. The ;reporter thereupon picked up the ear-trumpets, and was at once salute ' with the startling question “ Have you got those fish I sent lip packed in ice ?” “ Who are you ?” called out the reporter. “ Who are you ?" said the voice. “How about those shoos ?” “ A No. 1, 14-3-7 preferred. Take all,” said somebody softly, as if murmuring to himself among the pyramids of Egypt. “ How many cases have you sent to the Anchor Line ?” was the thundering response. “Cases of what—smallpox?” came muttered back dreamily—and then the telephone quivered under a storm of wicked Vvords. “Where Are you?” said the reporter. “None of your business,” replied the first voice; arid there was a bang as if somebody had slammed down the cover of a piano in ahurry, after which, more faintly than before, the same mysterious whispering of mystic numbers went on for a few moments and then ceased. It was all very puzzling until an agent of the telephone company called to explain that the shoe store wire had fallen athwart wires leading respectively to Fulton risk market and the Stock Exchange;