Many people think a telephone is essential. But I think it is a pest and a time waster. Very often you find it impossible to escape from some idle or inquisitive chatter-box, or from somebody who wants something for nothing. If you have a telephone in your own house, you will admit that it tends to ring when you least want it to ring when you are asleep, or in the middle of a meal or a conversation, or when you are just going out , or when you are in your bath. Are you strong-minded enough to ignore it, to say to yourself, 'Ah, well it will all be the same in a hundred year's time?' You are not. You think there may be some important news or message for you. I can assure you that if a message is really important it will reach you sooner or later. Have you never rushed dripping from the bath, or chewing from the tab]e, or dazed from the bed, only to be told that you are a wrong number? But you will say, you need not have your name printed in the telephone directory, and you can have a telephone which is only usable for outgoing calls. Besides, you will say, isn't it important to have a telephone in case of sudden emergency--illness, accident, or fire? Of course, you are right, but here in a thickly populated country like England one is seldom far from a telephone in case of dreadful necessity. I think perhaps I had better try to justify myself by trying to prove that what I like is good. I admit that in different circumstances--if I were a tycoon(实业界巨头) , for instance, or bed-ridden I might find a telephone essential. But then if I were a taxi-driver I should find a car essential. Let me put it another way: there are two things for which the English seem to show particular aptitude: one is mechanical invention, the other is literature. My own business happens to be with the use of words but I see I must now stop using them. For have just been handed a slip of paper to say that somebody is waiting to speak to me on the telephone. I think I had better answer it. After all, one never knows, it may be something important. What does the work 'pest' in the second sentence of the first paragraph mean? ( )