msieu

Even if they had not been, Mama's occasional sallies from her fireplace fort, saber waving threateningly, frequently endangered half our communications and we suffered all the while from the idiosyncrasies of the continental operators who seem unable ever to make a clear connection, varying this annoyance by a habit of either dropping dead or visiting the nearest café at those crucial moments when they did not interrupt a tense interchange by polite inquiries as to whether msieu had been connected.

Greener Than You Think Ward Moore 1940