Between ourselves, it is not
worth over three or four cents. When the officers of the
company found out that no one would buy their stock, and that
no one believed in them or their scheme, they laid a cable to
Octavia, and extended it on to this island. Then they said
they had run out of ready money, and would wait until they got
more before laying their cable any farther. I do not think
they ever will lay it any farther, but that is none of my
business. My business is to answer cable messages from San
Francisco, so that the people who visit the home office can
see that at least a part of the cable is working. That
sometimes impresses them, and they buy stock. There is
another chap over in Octavia, who relays all my messages and
all my replies to those messages that come to me through him
from San Francisco. They never send a message unless they
have brought someone to the office whom they want to impress,
and who, they think, has money to invest in the Y.C.C. stock,
and so we never go near the wire, except at three o'clock
every afternoon. And then generally only to say `How are
you?' or `It's raining,' or something like that.
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