I interpreted it as "What if Bell had conveyed the fact that he was about to get married to the other party?" I am pretty sure that happened, because, as we all know, he married his deaf student.
On an entirely unrelated note, What if we wore pink on Thursdays?
@clousems In principle your "Pink Thursday"idea has merit...BUT... I envision a Mexican wave of pink-clad proponents circling the globe once a week due to the annoying but,in this case,pertinent fact of the Earth being spheroid and at the same time rotating.
@chessspy1 Indeed he could have gotten the engaged signal.His hunchbacked wall-eyed shufflingly limping-gaited drooling moron of an assistant was well capable of stuffing up even the seemingly simple act of not actually touching the receiver until it made a noise. So the aforesaid idiot picks up ten minutes earlier,then shuffle-limps away to the toilet,leaving the phone off the hook. QED