THE TELEPHONE FACE


"What's the matter with that man?" said the Observer, repeating his
friend's interrogation, as they passed a pedestrian wearing a most
prodigious frown. "Don't you know what's the matter with him? He's got
the telephone face.

"Never heard of it, eh? Well, that shows that your powers of
perception are not particularly acute. The telephone face is no longer
a physiognomical freak, but a prevalent expression among the several
thousand unfortunate clerks and business men who find extensive use
for the telephone necessary. It is a distinctive cast of features,
too, which can readily be distinguished from any other by one who can
read faces at all.

"The dyspeptic has a 'face.' His expression is fitful and disgruntled,
but underlying it is a gleam of hope; the insolvent man, harassed by
creditors, has another well-defined type of facial mold. It is haunted
and worried, with a tinge of defiance in it; the owner of the 'bicycle
face' has his features set in lines of deadly resolution; the 'golf
face' displays fanatical enthusiasm and a puzzled look resulting from
a struggle with the vocabulary of the game; the 'poker face' shows
immobility and superstition; the 'telegraph face,' according to a
well-known New York professor, is 'vacant, stoic and unconcerned,' but
the 'telephone face' stands out among all of these in a class peculiar
to itself. There are traces of a battle and defeat marked on it; the
stamp of hope deferred and resignation, yet without that placidity
which usually betokens the acceptance of an inevitable destiny. The