Lewiston Teller

Long Distance Laughter.

Did you ever laugh by telegraph? Probably not. It would hardly pay. When one reflects that it would cost a cent or two per chuckle to express his sense of amusement, he refrains from manifesting it and lets it go. But laughing is done by telegraph. It is the telegraph operators who indulge in this luxury, and mostly the night operators, who have more time than the day people. When an operator becomes lonely and his sounders are clicking out messages not intended for him, he calls up some friend operator, maybe a hundred squares away, and opens a conversation. A conversation, of course, cannot be continued long before something 'funny' is said. It then becomes the duty of the operator to laugh. This he does by making four dots, then one dot and a dash, thus: .... .-, spelling ha. Thus to all jokes he replies h-a, h-a. Sometimes to make it easier, he says h-i, that is, four dots and two dots. The laugh by telegraph is necessarily cold and sardonic. It does not bubble irresistibly to the surface. It is the result of deliberate purpose. When one has sufficient self-control to laugh in this way, probably his tribute to your joke is not what you would desire. But the operator is often shaken with laughter before shaking his key with it, so to speak. Telegraph operators have a few other conversational expressions, among them 'hm,' four dots and two dashes, indicating surprise.