Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/202



ERE I am, in New York; and, as luck will have it, forced by circumstances over which I have no control to take up my abode close to the Union Telegraph Station; and worse still, in an attic, in front of which the telegraph wires of half the world seem to cross. In the daytime there is such a disturbance in the street that collecting one's thoughts is out of the question, and at night the wires moan and howl like souls in torment. Even as I write one of them is beginning to whistle. Ten to one it is the thick, fat wire just opposite my window, the most irrepressible of them all. Yes; I was not mistaken. Now the wretch is humming the refrain, "No rest for us by night or day." The other wires take up the tune, which seems to amuse the signal bell, for it is seized with such convulsions of laughter that it begins to ring aloud.

But this is more than I can stand, and, drawing up the blind, I fling open the window, muttering as I do so, and call out into the night:—

"Will you have the goodness to be quiet out there?"

A moment's pause, then the thick wire begins to speak:—

"Come now, that's rather hard lines! Pray, are we never to enjoy ourselves? The live-long day do we toil for you mortals—toil, I repeat, till I've actually got a stitch in my side with the effort, and then