Any delay is a direct personal affront that makes a vivid impression upon their minds.

And they are not apt to remember that most of the delays and blunders are being made, not by the expert girls, but by the careless people who persist in calling wrong numbers and in ignoring the niceties of telephone etiquette.
The truth about the American telephone girl is that she has become so highly efficient that we now expect her to be a paragon of perfection.
To give the young lady her due, we must acknowledge that she has done more than any other person to introduce courtesy into the business world.

She has done most to abolish the old-time roughness and vulgarity.

She has made big business to run more smoothly than little business did, half a century ago.

She has shown us how to take the friction out of conversation, and taught us refinements of politeness which were rare even among the Beau Brummels of pre-telephonic days.
Who, for instance, until the arrival of the telephone girl, appreciated the difference between "Who are you ?" and "Who is this ?" Or who else has so impressed upon us the value of the rising inflection, as a gentler habit of speech?
This propaganda of politeness has gone so far that to-day the man who is profane or abusive at the telephone, is cut off from the use of it.