Project Gutenberg 2010-06-03 Public domain in the USA. 84 Garson, Clee Direct Wire Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net "Direct Wire" by Clee Garson is a short story written in the early 1940s, likely during World War II. This narrative combines elements of comedy and satire as it explores themes of patriotism, gambling, and communication under unusual circumstances. The story unfolds in a cigar store run by two bookmakers, Mort Robbins and Mike Harrigan, who find themselves getting bizarre phone calls that lead to unexpected and humorous implications. In the content of the story, Mort and Mike, who are not overly patriotic, mysteriously enlist in the army after a series of strange phone calls where a man claiming to be the Angel Gabriel insists on speaking to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. As the story progresses, the two men attempt to handle this unusual situation while running their gambling operations. Ultimately, the connection becomes more absurd as they realize that the phone call is not just a prank, but an elaborate joke that plays on their understanding of reality. The twist at the end reveals that the phone was, in fact, disconnected the entire time, emphasizing the absurdity of their circumstances and the comedic genius of Garson's writing. (This is an automatically generated summary.) http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32672/32672-h/images/cover.jpg en Science fiction Short stories World War, 1939-1945 -- United States -- Fiction Telephone -- Fiction PS Text World War II Browsing: History - Warfare Browsing: Literature Browsing: Science-Fiction & Fantasy Browsing: Fiction 61666 61676 2024-09-14T04:09:19.675232 2023-09-14T09:06:26.985757 text/html text/html 57825 2010-06-03T11:36:36 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 167488 2010-06-03T11:36:36 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 application/zip 158314 2024-09-14T04:09:21.638229 application/epub+zip 157383 2024-09-14T04:09:20.054222 application/epub+zip 76865 2024-09-14T04:09:19.851209 application/epub+zip 195889 2024-09-14T04:09:23.058178 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 188002 2024-09-14T04:09:21.434200 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 108682 2022-09-15T05:45:58.528352 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 53322 53219 2024-09-14T04:09:19.503213 2023-09-14T09:06:26.839744 text/plain; charset=us-ascii text/plain 53223 2010-06-03T11:36:36 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 20447 2010-06-03T11:36:36 text/plain; charset=us-ascii application/zip 19171 2024-09-14T04:09:23.328211 application/rdf+xml 31948 2024-09-14T04:09:19.920206 image/jpeg 5123 2024-09-14T04:09:19.885221 image/jpeg 176509 2024-09-14T04:09:19.702278 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog