Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/183



wires, underground wires, submarine wires; encircling our planet like a huge spider’s web.

Telephones. Telegraphs.

Countless wires stretched taut and strong above our heads, under our feet.

Linking up the world’s capitalists. Capitalists in their spider-parlours, organizing themselves over these wires.

Into a treacherous league for mutual aid in sweating and racking the workers. …

A gale. Evening in the suburbs. Telephone pole on telephone pole looming up black.

And the wind moaning through the wires.

Near the post office stood a special big pole. The test pole. Near the arms was a little platform. Tokimoto, a linesman, clambered up to it to find out where the line was blocked. Fixing his set on to the wire, he put the receiver to his ear. Where was the trouble? Up or down?

He tested first the up-direction.

“Hello, hello,” he called, and from the city side he overheard a faint voice.

“A finger, I say.”