He sat down and lit his pipe. The accursed bell rang again, insistently, with infinitesimal pauses between the rings. He got up violently, with a loud curse. The blood surged again in his head; the ticket collector and the maddening train and Mrs. Bantam crowded back and concentrated themselves into the hateful exasperating shape of the telephone. He took off the receiver and shouted, “ Hullo! hullo! What is it? What is it? Stop that ringing!” There was no answer; the bell continued to ring. He had banged his pipe against the instrument, and the first ash was scattered over the papers on the table. He took it out of his mouth, and furiously waggled the receiver bracket up and down. He had heard that this caused annoyance, if not actual pain, to the telephone operator, and he hoped fervently that this was true. He wanted to hurt somebody. He would have liked to pick up the instrument and hurl it in the composite face of the evening’s persecutors. His pipe rolled off on to the floor.