“Hi, doll,” he mumbled. “Jeez! Din’t know you’d gone. What time is it anyhow…?”

“Paul, listen,” I said in my best and briskest schoolmarm tone. “I want you to take me to Chameleon’s on Saturday. I want to try this swinging lark…”

It is not just in cartoons that punctuation can be spoken. For a full minute, Paul said nothing, but question-marks and exclamation-marks sprayed from the telephone mouthpiece.