Wired Love by Ella Cheever Thayer (13 ebook reader txt) 📕

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, Quimby 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 someone 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 someone 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