With bated breath and anxious look, I ring,
A tired voice asks, "Number please" B456 we sing.
I hold the phone with shaking hand, pressed expectantly to ear,
The minutes fly, the hours pass till the voice I long to hear
Whispers softly, "Calling Perth, please hold the line".
I hold it in a rigid grip and sotto voce croon Auld Lang Syne
Until a voice so feminine and soft says, "Getting through?"
And quite amiable and bonhomie like I answer, "No, are you?"
Then as from Chili or Peru sounds like morse someone is sending
And the languid weary voice says, "Three minutes are you extending?"
The die is cast, may as well be hung for sheep as lamb,
So with a sob my voice treads o'er the ether, "Yes I am",
At last a buzzing, like blowflies on a dying sheep
Erupts from out the diaphram, arouses me from sleep,
And a voice from Tanganyika, (or so it seems, coos "Yes?"
Expectantly, though she were a quizz fan trying to guess.
Gleefully I holler out, "Jim Jones of Bobalong,
I ordered a part for my poison cart, the part you sent is wrong,
The spring I got is far too weak. I want one that's strong
The number on the part is 798, with foriegn patents pending--"
Then a voice within me whispered, "Six minutes, are you extending?"
Notes
From the South Australian Newspaper The Great Southern Herald 20 Jun 1947 p. 5.
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