Page 146 - tender-is-the-night

‘It was one of the most extraordinary telephone conver-
sations I’ve ever held.’
Dick had talked not only to Abe but to a dozen others.
On the phone these supernumeraries had been typically in-
troduced as: ‘— man wants to talk to you is in the teput
dome, well he says he was in it—what is it?
‘Hey, somebody, shut-up—anyhow, he was in some
shandel-scandal and he kaa POS-sibly go home. My own
PER-sonal is that—my personal is he’s had a—‘ Gulps
sounded and thereafter what the party had, rested with the
unknown.
The phone yielded up a supplementary offer:
‘I thought it would appeal to you anyhow as a psychol-
ogist.’ The vague personality who corresponded to this
statement was eventually hung on to the phone; in the se-
quence he failed to appeal to Dick, as a psychologist, or
indeed as anything else. Abe’s conversation flowed on as
follows:
‘Hello.’
‘Well?’
‘Well, hello.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Well.’ There were interpolated snorts of laughter.
‘Well, I’ll put somebody else on the line.’
Sometimes Dick could hear Abe’s voice, accompanied
by scufflings, droppings of the receiver, far-away fragments
such as, ‘No, I don’t, Mr. North... .’ Then a pert decided voice
had said: ‘If you are a friend of Mr. North you will come
down and take him away.’

146 Tender is the Night