The Psychology of Telephony 35 



when dissolved by the faculty of sight. Some telephone 

 philosophers think that we shall never be rid of the disability 

 until seeing by telephone (so to speak) becomes an accomplished 

 fact ; just as we read in that ancient classic, the Book of Job, 

 " I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine 

 eye seeth thee." Something has been done in that direction, but 

 not yet is it part of the interchange of communication, and I am 

 afraid that it is not likely to be. We shall have to modify our 

 telephone psychology without the aid of sight, and it will be a 

 good discipline for us. 



Much the same might be said as regards time. For some 

 mysterious reasons, which I cannot explain, time is always 

 erratic on the telephone. I have had respectable citizens, even 

 ministers of religion, tell me in days gone by that the operator 

 kept them waiting ten minutes. In one case it was a bishop, 

 usually harmless, kindly disposed, and a lover of his kind. He 

 had waited 35 seconds for an answer — too long, we admit, but 

 his conception of the period was amazing. I tried him with my 

 official stop watch, and I asked him to guess the length of certain 

 periods of time both with the telephone in his hand and without 

 the telephone. His guess was wonderfully accurate without the 

 telephone, but with the telephone invariably he quadrupled 

 the time once it got beyond ten seconds. Other citizens are affected 

 in the other direction. They ask for a number ; the operator 

 picks up a peg and taps the terminal and finds the number 

 engaged. She conveys the information to the caller. Of course 

 she is quick ; she is trained to be quick ; we know to the decimal 

 of a second how long it takes her to perform the operation. But 

 I am constantly told that she never tries at all, that she just 

 says "number engaged" out of spite or negligence. And this 

 summary reflection on her honour is always based on the pre- 

 sumption that the interval of time is not sufficient. Now it may 

 as well be said that with the telephone in one's hand the estimate 

 of the lapse of small periods of time is invariably aberiant. Why 

 it should be so I do not know, but I have tried my own estimate 



