Young People's Pride by Stephen Vincent Benet

The rest of the party has scattered to the gardens or the porch -- Oliver / has wandered into the library alone to wait for Peter who is bringing / around the two-seater himself. It is a big dim room with books all the / way up to the ceiling and a comfortable leather lounge upon which he / sinks, picks up a magazine from a little table beside it and starts / ruffling the pages idly. The chirrup of a telephone bell that seems to / come out of the wall beside him makes him jump.

Then he remembers -- that must be Mr. Piper's office through the closed / door there. He remembers, as well, Peter joking with his father once / about his never getting away from business even in the country and / pointing at the half dozen telephones on top of the big flat desk with / a derisive gesture while detailing to Oliver the fondness that Sargent / Piper has for secretive private wires and the absurd precautions he / takes to keep them intensely private. "Why he went and had all his / special numbers here changed once just because I found out one of them / by mistake and called him up on it for a joke -- the cryptic old person! " / Peter had said with mocking affection.