TALES OF THE TELEPHONE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2710, 8 October 1887, Page 2

TALES OF THE TELEPHONE.

A good telephoneatory is rather rare now-a-days, the humorous possibilities of the instrument apparently having been exhausted, says " Civis" in tho Otago Daily Times. A medical journal reports a caße of telephonic diagnosis which certainly has its humorous side. A doctor waßrung up late at night and hesotigtto come instantly to a child seized by croup, "Are you sure it's oroup ?" he »sked, "just hold the cb\ld up to the telephone, and let me hear the cough." They held the child up to the tolephone, the doctor listened to the cough, and diagnosed the ease as •i■■courataly.as if the little- patient had been in the room. Better than this, however, is another story, tho locality of which I will not indicate'farther than by stating that it was not Dune* din, Mrs Prunes-and-Prisms, to whom hor husband permits the luxury of a telephone, rang up the butcher to in* quire about the meat ordered ior dinner and. which had not arrived at five in the afternoon. "Where is the meat that was ordered for Mrs Pruhes-and-PHsms this morning ?" she asked. " It'll be at the house.in ten minutes.". "I'm afraid you'll disappoint me," continued Mrs P. and P. Then she received the following astounding reply:— "You can betyqur sweet life, me daisy, that I won't disappoint yon, for I'm dead struck on your shape!" . A shriek, and then the query: "Do you know to who you are talking, sir V "Of course I do; I'm talking to the cook." "No, you're not; you're talking to Mrs PraneMnd-PriuM I" « Whew!", whistled the butoher, quite impertinent, " then in that case all bets k off." A furiouß ring from the lady's end! terminated: the conversation at this" noint..'; What .tha precise inuendo ■contained ,in the',"butcher's remarks fahput bets remains to bo.. guessed, Probably ;ho meant that the mistress' shape wasnot one that he would care: to pnt.his money on, -Mrs Prunes*n&' Prisma retired, panting, ip consider whether it would be neoeasary. to discharge her cook as well as change her butoher,