"Who's Marty Freeman?"

"The guy I've been cheating on you with," replied Ada. She unzipped her holdall. Out came a blue box and a speaker. "Hold this to the handset," Ada grabbed the speaker.

"Now, call a random 800 number on the rotary dial. How about the IRS," suggested Ada, "they don't care about the little guy being chewed out by Uncle Sam."

"Sounds like a good idea," concurred Homer.

"Can I borrow your phone book?"

"Sure thing," permitted Homer. He lifted the heavy phone book down from the shelf by the telephone.

Ada flipped through the phone book until she found "Internal Revenue Service".

As Ada read, Homer picked up the handset and heard the dial tone. He dialed the number with his free hand. The dial tone continued.

"Alright, so what are the initials of 'Marty Freeman'?"

"MF?"

"MF is actually short for 'multi-frequency'. You see, the Bell System transmits information about calls in the same band as the calls themselves. They use a single 2600 Hz frequency to signal that someone has hung up." Ada took out the whistle he had shown Homer earlier. She blew it into the mouthpiece of the telephone. The dial tone stopped.

"See? Ma Bell thinks we've hung up."

"Here's the trickier part. The Bell System uses a combination of two frequencies played at the same time to signal numbers, as well as to signal the beginning and end of a dialing. They think that'll stop phreaks--what musicians have been doing for nearly a thousand years."

"And how would they simulate the playing of two frequencies at one time?"

"It's called a chord, and that's what the 'Marty Freeman' does! Play two frequencies at one time. And it'll help you get Frank Carson."

"Who's Frank Carson?"

"Free call! Another one of my boyfriends."

Ada gingerly tapped out buttons. "So this is--we're going to get Frank Carson with a phreak friend in Australia."

Homer heard the noise of the signals the blue box sent against his ear. Cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep.

"Hello," he heard.

"This is my boyfriend," introduced Ada.

"And who would that be, Yank?"

"Me," said Homer,

"Well, I don't care for that." He hung up.

"I can't make people pick up their handsets. Sorry, but that's one thing I can't do."