Chapter 3. Visible And Invisible Friends

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_ CHAPTER III. VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE FRIENDS

With perhaps one or two less frowns than usual at the destiny that compelled her to forego any morning naps, and be up and stirring at the early hour of six o'clock, Nattie arose next morning, aware of a more than accustomed willingness to go to the office. And immediately on her arrival there, she opened the key, and said, without calling, just to ascertain if her far-away acquaintance would notice it,--

"G. M. (good morning) C!"

Apparently "C" had his or her ears on the alert, for immediately came the response,

"G. M., my dear!"

A form of expression rather familiar for so short an acquaintance, that is, supposing "C" to be a gentleman. "But then, people talk for the sake of talking, and never say what they mean on the wire," thought Nattie. Besides, did not the distance in any case annul the familiarity? Therefore, without taking offense, even without comment, she asked:

"Are we to get along to-day without quarreling?"

"Oh! it is you, is it, 'N'?" responded "C," "I thought so, but wasn't quite sure. Yes, you, may 'break' at every word, and I will still be amiable."

"I should be afraid to put you to the test," replied Nattie, with a laugh.

"Do you then think me such a hopelessly ill-natured fellow?" inquired "C."

"Fellow!" triumphantly repeated Nattie. "Be careful, or you will betray yourself!"

"Ha, ha!" laughed "C." "Stupid enough of me, wasn't it? But it only proves the old adage about giving a man rope enough to hang himself."

"Don't mention old adages, for I detest them!" said Nattie. "Especially that one about the early bird and the worm. But I fear, as a mystery, you are not a success, Mr. 'C'."

"A very bad attempt at a pun," said "C." "I trust, however, you will not desert me, now your curiosity is satisfied, Miss 'N.'?"

"Don't be in such a hurry to miss me. I have said nothing yet to give you that right," Nattie replied.

"Nevertheless, it's utterly impossible not to miss you. I missed you last night after you had gone home, for instance. "But you, a great, hulking fellow! No, indeed! In my mind's eye--"

But what was in "C's" mind's eye did not just then appear, for at this interesting point some one at Nattie's window, saying. "I would like to send a message," obliged her reluctantly to interrupt him with,

"Excuse me a moment, a customer is waiting."

She then turned as much of her attention as she could separate from "C" to the customer, enabled, perhaps, to answer the volley of miscellaneous questions poured upon her with unusual affability, on account of the settlement--and in the right direction!--of that vexed question of "C's" sex.

But she could not help thinking, as she glanced at the message finally written, and handed to her that had the writer attended a little more to the spelling-book, and a little less to the accumulation of diamond rings, it might have been a very wise proceeding. But perhaps

"Meat me at the train," was sufficiently intelligible for all purposes.

"What was it about your mind's eye?" Nattie asked over the wire, at the first opportunity.

"C" was again on the alert, without being called, for the answer came, after a moment, just long enough for him to cross the room, perhaps.

"As I was saying, in the eye aforesaid, me thinks I see a tall slim young lady with blue eyes and light hair, and dimples that come into her cheeks when I stupidly betray my sex."

As "C" said this, Nattie glanced into the glass just over her head at the reflection of her face. A face whose expression was its charm; that never could be called pretty, but that nevertheless suggested a possibility--only a possibility, of being handsome. For there is a vast difference between pretty and handsome. Pretty people seldom know very much; but to be handsome, a person must have brains; an inner as well as an outer beauty.

"How fortunate it is you are not near enough to be disenchanted!" Nattie replied to "C." "Your mind's eye is very unreliable. Tall! why, I'm only five feet! never was guilty of a dimple, and my eyes are of some dreadfully nondescript color."

"If you are only five feet, you never can look down on me, which is a great consolation," "C" responded. "And for the rest imagination will clothe the unseen with all possible beauty and grace."

"I am sure I am perfectly willing you should imagine me as beautiful as you please," replied Nattie, "As long as we don't come face to face, which in all probability we never shall, you will not know how different from the real was the ideal."

"Please don't discourage me so soon, for I hope sometime we may clasp hands bodily as we do now spiritually, on the wire--for we do, don't we?" said "C" asserting before he questioned.

"Certainly--here is mine, spiritually!" responded Nattie, without the least hesitation, as she thought, of the miles of safe distance between. "Now may I ask--"

"Oh! come, come! this will never do! You are getting on altogether too fast for people who were quarreling so yesterday!" broke in a third party, who signed, "Em." and was a young lady wire-acquaintance of Nattie's, some twenty miles distant.

"You think the circuit of our friendship ought to be broken?" queried Nattie.

"Ah! leave that to time and change, by which all circuits are broken," remarked "C."

"Yes, but such a sudden friendship is sure to come to a violent end," Em. said. "Suppose now I should report you for talking so much--not to say flirting--on the wire, which is against the rules you know?"

"In that event I should know how to be revenged", replied "C." "I should put on my 'ground' wire and cut off communication between you and that little fellow at Z!"

Em. laughed, and perhaps feeling herself rather weak on that point, subsided, and Nattie began, "Sentiment--"

But the pretty little speech on that subject she had all ready was spoiled by an operator--who evidently had none of it in his soul--usurping the wire with the prefaced remark,

"Get out!"

The wire being unusually busy, this was all the conversation Nattie and "C" had during the day, but Just before six o'clock came the call,

"B m--B m--B m--X n."

"B m," immediately responded Nattie.

"I merely want to ask for my character before saying g. n. (good night). Haven't I been amiable to-day?" was asked from X n.

"Very, but there is no merit in it, as Mark Tapley would say," replied Nattie. "You had no provocation."

"Now I flattered myself I had 'come out strong!' Alas! what a hard thing it is to establish one's reputation," said "C," sagely; "but I trust to Time, who, after all, is a pretty good fellow to right matters, notwithstanding a dreadful careless way he has of strewing crow's feet and wrinkles."

"Has he dropped any down your way?" asked Nattie.

"Hinting to know my age now, are you? Oh! curiosity! curiosity! Yes, I think he has implanted a perceptible crow's foot or two; but he has spared the hairs of my head, and for that I am thankful! Did you ever see an aged operator? I never did, and don't know whether it's because electricity acts as a sort of antidote, or whether they grow wise as they grow old, and leave the business. The case is respectfully submitted."

"Your organs of discernment must be very fully developed," Nattie replied. "It is fortunate I am too far away to be analyzed personally; but I don't think I will stay after hours to discuss these things to night. I am tired, for I have had a run of disagreeable people to-day. So g. n."

"G. n., my dear," said the gallant "C," in whose composition bashfulness seemed certainly to have no part. But then--as Nattie previously had thought--he was along way off.

It must be confessed "C" could hardly fail to have been flattered had he known how full Nattie's thoughts were of him, as she went home that night. A little foolish in the young lady, who rather prided herself on being strong-minded, this deep interest; but hers was a lonely life, poor girl, and "C" was certainly entertaining "over the wire," whatever he might be in a personal interview--of course, not very likely to occur. No! it was all "over the wire!"

As she reached her own door, absorbed in these meditations, she heard the sound of a merry laugh over in Mrs. Simonson's, and saw a large trunk in the hall. From this she inferred that Miss Archer had arrived, a fact Miss Kling confirmed, with uplifted eyebrows, and the remark,

"There must be something wrong about a young woman who has three immense trunks!"

Although Nattie felt a desire to make this newcomer's acquaintance, it was less strong than it might have been had she arrived a week sooner; for it was undoubtedly true that the interest she had in her new, invisible friend far exceeded that towards a possible visible one. Such is the power of mystery!

The office now possessed a new charm for her. To the surprise of an idle clerk in an office over the way, who had always noted how particular she was to arrive at exactly eight A. M., and to leave precisely at six P. M., she suddenly began to appear before hours in the morning, and to stay after hours at night. Of course this benighted person was not aware that by so doing she secured quiet chats with "C," uninterrupted, and without being told in the middle of some pretty speech to "Shut up!" or to " Keep out!" by some soured and inelegant operator on the line, to whom the romance of telegraphy had long ago given place to the monotonous, poorly-paid, everyday reality.

And it came to pass that "C" soon shared all her daily life, thoughts and troubles. Annoyances became lighter because she told him, and he sympathized. Any funny incident that occurred was doubly funny, because they laughed over it together, and so it went on.

That "good-night, dear," previously unchallenged, became a regular institution and still, on account of those long miles between them, Nattie made only a faint remonstrance when his usual morning salutation grew into "Good-morning, little five-foot girl at B m!" then was shortened to "Good-morning, little girl!"

And all this time it never occurred to them that excepting "N" was for Nattie, and "C" for Clem, they knew really nothing about each other, not even their names.

Thus the acquaintance went on, amid much banter from the before-mentioned "Em.," and interruptions from disgusted old settlers.

It was by no means to the satisfaction of Quimby, that Miss Rogers should thus allow the telegraphic world to supersede the one in which he had a part. That intimacy with Miss Archer, of which he had dreamed, as a means of improving his own acquaintance with her towards whom his susceptible heart yearned, did not make even a beginning. In fact, what with Nattie being engaged all day, and stopping after hours for a quiet talk with "C," and Miss Archer having many evening engagements, the two had never even met. And how a young man was to make himself agreeable in the eyes of a young lady he only caught a glimpse of occasionally, was a problem quite beyond solution by the brain of Quimby.

Two or three times, in his distraction of mind, he had stood in very light clothing, about Nattie's hour of returning home, full twenty-five minutes at the outer door of the hotel, with a cold wind blowing on him. But Nattie, utterly unconscious of this devotion, was enjoying the conversation of "C;" and so at last, half frozen, poor Quimby was compelled to retreat, his object unaccomplished. He would willingly have wandered about the halls for hours, and waylaid her, had it not been that the fear of those two terrific ones, Miss Kling and Mr. Fishblate, "catching him at it," prevailed over all other considerations. As for going to her office, Quimby, in his bashfulness, dared not even walk through the street containing it, lest she should penetrate his motives, and be offended at his presumption. Under these circumstances he began to despair of ever having the opportunity, to say nothing of the ability, of making an impression, when one afternoon he chanced to meet Miss Archer in the vicinity of Nattie's office, and was instantly overwhelmed by a brilliant idea; that was to ask Miss Archer--to whom he had talked much of Nattie during their short acquaintance--if she would call on her with him, omitting the fact that he dared not go alone.

Miss Archer, a little curious to see the lady with whom, she was secretly convinced, Quimbv was in love, readily consented to the proposition; and so it came to pass that Nattie was interrupted in an account she was giving "C" of a man who wanted to send a message to his wife, and seemed to think "My wife, in Providence," all the address necessary, by the unexpected apparition of Quimby, accompanied by a stylish and handsome young lady.

"I--I beg pardon, if I--if I intrude, you know," he stammered, beginning to wish he had not done it, as Nattie, with an "Excuse me, visitors," to "C," rose and came forward. "But I--I brought Miss Archer! To make you acquainted, you know."

"I am indebted to you for that pleasure," Nattie said, with a smile, as she took the hand Miss Archer extended, saying,

"I have heard Quimby speak about you so much, I already feel acquainted."

Quimby blushed, and nervously fingered his necktie.

"Such near neighbors--so lonesome--thought you ought to know each other," he said confusedly.

"Yes, I began to fear we were destined never to meet," Nattie replied, as she held the private door open for her visitors to enter, a proceeding contrary to rules, but she preferred rather to transgress in this way, than in manners, and leave her callers standing out in the cold.

"I don't know as we ever should, had it not been for Quimby," said Miss Archer, glancing curiously around the office. "I believe I never was in a telegraph office before. Don't you find the confinement rather irksome?"

"Sometimes," Nattie replied; "but then there always is some one to talk with on the wire,' and in that way a good deal of the time passes."

"Talk with--on the wire?" queried Miss Archer, with uplifted eyebrows. "What does that mean? Do tell me. I am as ignorant as a Hottentot about anything appertaining to telegraphy. Nearly all I know is, you write a message, pay for it, and it goes."

Nattie smiled and explained, and then turning to Quimby, asked,

"You remember my speaking about 'C' and wondering whether a gentleman or lady?"

"Oh, yes!" Quimby remembered, and fidgeted on his chair.

"He proved to be a gentleman."

"Oh, yes; exactly, you know!" responded Quimby, looking anything but elated.

"It must be very romantic and fascinating to talk with some one so far away, a mysterious stranger too, that one has never seen," Miss Archer said, her black eyes sparkling. "I should get up a nice little sentimental affair immediately, I know I should, there is something so nice about anything with a mystery to it."

"Yes, telegraphy has its romantic side--it would be dreadfully dull if it did not," Nattie answered.

"But--now really," said Quimby, who sat on the extreme edge of the chair, with his feet some two yards apart from each other; "really, you know, now suppose--just suppose, your mysterious invisible shouldn't be--just what you think, you know. You see, I remember one or two young men in telegraph offices, whose collars and cuffs are always soiled, you know!"

"I have great faith in my 'C,'" laughed Nattie.

"It would be dreadfully unromantic to fall in love with a soiled invisible, wouldn't it," said Miss Archer, with an expressive shrug of her shoulders.

Nattie colored a little, and answered hastily:

"Oh! it's only fun, you know;" at which Quimby brightened, and Miss Archer inquired gayly,

"Pour passer le temps? "

Nattie nodded in reply, as she took a message from a lady, who had only a few words to send, but found it necessary to ask about fifteen questions, and relate all her recent family history, concluding with the birth of twins, before being satisfied her message would go all right,--a proceeding that made Quimby stare, and afforded Miss Archer much amusement.

"Oh! that is nothing!" Nattie said, in answer to the latter's significant laugh, when the customer had retired. "Some very ludicrous incidents occur almost daily, I assure you. Truly, the ignorance of people in regard to telegraphy is surprising; aggravating too, sometimes. Just imagine a person thinking a telegraph office is managed on the same principle as those stores where they at first charge double the value of the goods, for the sake of giving people the pleasure of beating them down! It was only yesterday that a woman tried to coax me to take off ten cents, and then snarled at me because I wouldn't, and declared she would patronize some other office next time, as if it mattered to me, except to wish she might! And there was some one calling on the wire with a rush message all the time she was detaining me!"

"They think you ought to be harnessed with a punch, like a horse-car conductor," said Miss Archer, laughing, and added,

"I wish I knew how to telegraph, I would have a chat with your 'C.' I am getting very much interested in him!"

Quimby twirled his hat uneasily.

"But--I beg pardon, but he may be a soiled invisible, you know!" he hinted, seemingly determined to keep this possibility uppermost.

Before Nattie could again defend her "C" a woman, covered with cheap finery, thrust her head into the window.

"How much does it cost to telegram?" she asked.

"To what place did you wish to send?" Nattie inquired.

With a look, as if she considered this a very impertinent question, the woman replied, with a slight toss of her head,

"It's no matter about the place, I only want to know what it costs to telegram!"

"That depends entirely on where the message is going," answered Nattie, with a glance at Miss Archer.

"Oh, does it?" said the woman, looking surprised. "Well, to Chicago, then."

Nattie told her the tariff to that city.

"Is that the cheapest?" she then asked. "I only want to send a few words, about six."

"The price is the same for one or ten words," said Nattie rather impatiently.

The woman gave another surprised stare.

"That's strange!" she said incredulously. "Well"--moving away--"I'll write then; I am not going to pay for ten words when I want to send six."

"That is a specimen of the ignorance you were just speaking of, I presume," laughed Miss Archer, as soon as the would-be sender was out of hearing.

"Yes," replied Nattie, "it's hard to make them believe sometimes that everything less than ten words is a stated price, and that we only charge per word after that number. And, speaking of ignorance, do you know I once actually had a letter brought me, all sealed, to be sent that way by telegraph."

Miss Archer laughed again, and Quimby inquired,

"I--I beg pardon, but did I understand that the last came within your experience?"

"Yes," Nattie replied, "and I had a young woman come in here once, who asked me to write the message for her, and after I had done so, in a somewhat hasty scrawl, she took it, looked it all over critically, dotted some 'i's,' and crossed some 't's,' I all the time staring, amazed, and wondering if she supposed I could not read my own hand-writing, then scowled and threw it down disgustedly saying, 'John never can read that! I shall have to write it myself. He knows my writing!'"

"Can such things be!" cried Miss Archer.

"But," asked Quimby, from his uncomfortable perch on the edge of the chair, "Isn't there a--a something--a fac-simile arrangement?"

"I believe there is, but it is not yet perfected," replied Nattie.

"Ah, well! then the young woman was only in advance of the age," said Miss Archer; "and what with that and the telephone, and that dreadful phonograph that bottles up all one says and disgorges at inconvenient times, we will soon be able to do everything by electricity; who knows but some genius will invent something for the especial use of lovers? something, for instance, to carry in their pockets, so when they are far away from each other, and pine for a sound of 'that beloved voice,' they will have only to take up this electrical apparatus, put it to their ears, and be happy. Ah! blissful lovers of the future!"

"Yes!--I--yes, that would be a good idea!" cried Quimby eagerly; then instantly fearing he had betrayed himself, turned red, and clutched at the mustache that eluded his grasp. Miss Archer looked at him and smiled, and Nattie was about to expound further when she heard "C" asking on the wire,

"N, haven't your visitors gone yet? Tell them to hurry!"

"You wouldn't say so," Nattie responded to him, "if you knew what a handsome young lady one of my two visitors is. We have been talking about you, too."

"Introduce me, please do," said "C."

"What are you doing, now?" asked Miss Archer, watchful of Nattie's smiling face.

Leaving the key open, Nattie explained, to Quimby's unconcealed dissatisfaction; but Miss Archer was delighted.

"Oh! do introduce me! Can you any way?" she said.

Nattie nodded affirmatively, and taking hold of the key, wrote, "She is as anxious as you are. So allow me to make you acquainted with Miss Archer, a young lady with the prettiest black eyes I ever saw!"

"Is she an operator?" asked "C."

"Doesn't know a dot from a dash," Nattie answered him.

"Then tell her in plain language, that this is the happiest moment of my life, and also that black eyes are my especial adoration!"

"What have you been telling him about me, you dreadful girl?" queried Miss Archer, shaking her head remonstratingly when this was repeated to her. "But you may inform him I am delighted to make his acquaintance, and hope he has curly hair, because it's so nice to pull!"

"With the hope of such a happy occurrence, I will hereafter do up my hair in papers," "C" replied when Nattie had repeated this to him. "But do not slight your other visitor."

"Shall I introduce you?" asked Nattie holding the key open, and turning to Quimby, who had betrayed various symptoms of uneasiness while this conversation was going on, and who now grasped his hat firmly, as if to throw it at the little sounder that represented the offending "C," and answered,

"Oh, no! I--really I--I beg pardon, but it's really no matter about me--you know!"

"He says he is of no consequence," Nattie said to "C."

"He!" repeated "C," "a he, is it? Ought I to be jealous? Is it you, or our black-eyed friend who is the attraction?"

Nattie replied only with a ha!

"Is he talking now?" asked Miss Archer, mindful of Nattie's smile, and nodding towards the clattering sounder, at which Quimby was scowling.

"No, some other office is sending business now, so our conversation is suspended," answered Nattie, as much to Quimby's relief as to Miss Archer's regret.

"I shall improve the acquaintance, however," the latter said. "I am very curious to know how he looks, aren't you?"

"Yes, but I do not suppose I ever shall," Nattie answered.

"Then you--I beg pardon, but you never expect to see him?" queried Quimby, with great earnestness.

"In all probability we never shall meet. I think I should be dreadfully embarrassed if we should," Nattie replied, as she handed the day's cash to the boy who just then came after it. "Face to face we would really be strangers to each other."

Quimby evinced more satisfaction at this than the occasion seemed to warrant, as Nattie noticed, with some surprise, but several customers claiming her attention, all at once, and all in a hurry, she was kept too busy for some time, to think upon the cause.

As soon as she was at leisure, Miss Archer, with the remark that they had made an unpardonably long call, arose to go.

But you must certainly come again, "Nattie said, cordially, already feeling her to be an old friend.

"Indeed I shall," she answered, in the genial way peculiar to her. "You have a double attraction here, you know. Can I say good-by to 'C?'"

"I fear not, as the wire is busy," replied Nattie. "But I will say it for you as soon as possible."

"Yes, tell him, please, that I will see him--I mean, hear the clatter he makes again soon: You, I shall see at the hotel, I hope, now we have met."

"Oh, yes!" Nattie replied. "I am very much indebted to Quimby for making us acquainted."

"Oh! really now, do you mean it?" exclaimed Quimby, with sudden delight. "I am so glad I've done something right at last, you know! Always doing something wrong, you know!" then hugging his hat to his breast, and speaking in a confidential whisper, he added, to the great amusement of the two girls, "I have a presentiment--a horrible presentiment--I'm always making mistakes, you see. I'm used to it, but I couldn't get used to that, you know--that some day I shall marry the wrong woman!"

So saying, and with a last glance of implacable dislike at the sounder, Quimby bowed awkwardly, and departed with the laughing Miss Archer.

Soon after their departure, "C" asked,

"Has Black-Eyed Susan gone?"

"Yes," responded Nattie. "She left a good-by for you, and means to improve your acquaintance."

"Thrice happy I! But about this he? Who is this he? I want to know all about him. Is he a hated rival?"

"Ha! I never heard him say so, but I will ask him if you wish. He lives in the same building with me, and brought Miss Archer, a fellow-lodger, down to introduce her."

"Do you ever go to balls, concerts, theaters, or to ride with him?" asked "C," who seemed determined to make a thorough investigation of matters.

"Dear me! No! He never asked me!"

"Do you wish he would?" persisted "C."

"Of course I do!" replied Nattie, somewhat regardless of truth.

"It is my opinion I shall be obliged to come and look after you," "C" replied, at this admission.

"But you wouldn't know whether you were looking after the right person or not, when you were here!" Nattie said, with a smiling face and sparkling eyes turned in the direction of an urchin,' flattening his nose against her window-glass, who immediately fled, overwhelmed with astonishment, at being, as he supposed, so smiled upon.

"And why wouldn't I?" questioned "C."

"Because I should recognize you immediately, and should pretend it was not I, but some substitute," replied Nattie.

"You seem to be very positive about recognizing me. Is your intuitive bump so well-developed as all that?" asked "C."

"Yes," Nattie responded. "And then you know there would be a twinkle in your eye that would betray you at once."

"Indeed! We will see about that, young lady. But now, as a customer has been drumming on my shelf for the past five minutes, in a frantic endeavor to attract my attention, and has by this time worked himself into a fine irascible temper, because I will not even glance at him, I must bid you good-night, with the advice, watch for that twinkle, and be sure you discover it!" _

Read next: Chapter 4. Neighborly Calls

Read previous: Chapter 2. At The Hotel Norman

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