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      “I think I understand how it works,” faltered Mrs. Spoopendyke. “You say, ‘Yellow, yellow — !’”
      “There’s the combination!” yelled Mr. Spoopendyke. “You got your work in that time! Why didn’t you tell me I was bringing this thing home to the inventor? What’d you want to let me stand up here and explain this thing to the only comprehensive brain that ever tackled it for? You’ve got it! With what you know now and what you’ve got to find out, you only need a wig and a law-suit to be the whole science of electricity. I tell ye this is the way it works!” and Mr. Spoopendyke brought the box a kick that splintered it. “See it work?” he demanded, pulling at the wires until they cut his hands. “Watch it, while I convey your regards to the other lunatics!” and he danced on the remnants of the instrument and smashed the fragments against the wall.
      “Never mind, dear,” remonstrated Mrs. Spoopendyke, puttering around after him and trying to soothe him. “When we want Mr. Specklewottle again, we’ll just send a servant around after him. That’ll be much nicer than trusting to a nasty wire, and I know there was a draught through that box, for I could feel it as soon as it come in the room.”

ex Stanley Huntley, “At the Telephone,” in The Spoopendyke Papers (New York, 1883) : 4-8 (8)
Bavarian State Library copy/scan (via google books) : link
Ohio State U copy/scan, via hathitrust (1883 printing?): link

—

Rather less on Stanley Huntley (1847?-1885) than on his wife Florence (1855-1912), journalist, editor, humorist, and (later) occult author. The two had great success with the Spoopendykes, which were published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and widely syndicated. The sketches also appeared in various collections of humor and so-called “recitations.”
wikipedia : link
 

1 November 2025