The Crime

Taken by and large, Western Union girls are a pretty nice lot. They generally talk through their noses, pronounce "nine" as though it rhymed with "lion," and are unduly inquisitive about whose name the telephone is registered under, but in a pinch they'll always come through.

A student found this out the other day when composing a message which he intended to pack a considerable wallop. He remembered gloomily that the Federal Communications Commission had laws about forceful language, and he decided to put his problem to the Western Union girl point-blank.

"I want to swear," he said quietly.

"Well," the voice replied, after a bit of deliberation, "it's all right to say 'H' if I don't know what it means."