"Sure," I said.
"Then—" and he seemed surprised, if not downright startled—"what kind of a phone are you speaking from?"
"Huh?" I said. "What kind? The regular kind. Phone, desk, dial, M-1—or whatever the Army calls it."
This time his voice went off like a small bomb. "The Army?" he said.
"Sure," I said. "What's the matter with the Army?"
And thought: Navy or Air Force type, no doubt. Our allies. Have to put up with them in the Pentagon. Have to put up with a lot of things—even being Colonel Lawrence Boggs didn't save you from a snafu dialling system. I thought: somebody is out to needle armchair colonels this week. I'll play around with it for a while, maybe find out who's got the sense of humor.
The voice said, "Look here, are you joking with me?"
"Perish it," I said.
"But this talk about—about dial phones. About armies. Why, you sound like one of those historical tri-vids about the twentieth century!"
I smiled, without too much humor, shook my head at the phone, and said, "Look, fellow, come off it, will you? I haven't got time to play games." I hoped he wasn't some general or equivalent rank in a pixie mood.