And all this is nothing compared to the rumors that are going the rounds - that we shall shortly be fitted with pocket wireless telephones, with which we can call up Charlie Chaplin and Lloyd George. Think of going to the movies then! In the most thrilling quarter of the eighth massive part, just when the lights are down and only a green spot follows the villain as he creeps across the hearthrug to his victim - and trips headlong over his trusty bulldog - just then there is a tinkle in our waistcoats pocket and a voice from another world shrills: "Come home at once, John. The furnace fire has gone out."
Excerpted from a 1919 Pacific Telephone Magazine, reprinted in the Spring 1996 issue of California History, the magazine of the California Historical Society.
