But it is a telephone-bell that does it. You go down seventy-two
steps--backwards, or you hit your head--to a German room, which smells
German, and you will find my boudoir, furnished with sandbags, a
shaving mirror and a telephone.
At eleven o'clock I lie on the sandbags and, like the great hunter,
close my eyes immediately in dreamless sleep.
At five minutes past eleven the telephone-bell rings.
That is what I am good at. I leap to my feet and say "Hullo!"
Utter silence follows, save (as Mr. BEACH THOMAS would say) for the
monotonous drone of the great shells bursting outside.
I repeat my original remark. "Hullo!" I say brightly, "Hullo!...
Hullo!"
I shake the microphone. It sounds as though sand had got into it, and
still there is silence. The minutes creep on and my voice begins to
fail. Outside in the quiet night a solitary gas-alarm chirps a few
quiet notes to the stars and is still. I continue to say "Hullo!"
At eleven-fifteen the operator at the other end finishes the story of
what he said to her and what she, on the other hand, said to him, and
turns refreshed to his instrument.
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