Glenn Reynolds writes an elegy to Mark Hopkins.

“For years, the phone would ring at random times, and when I’d answer it was always the same:  ‘This is Mark Hopkins.’  (He always started exactly the same way.)  Then followed some sort of problem, usually leading to either a request for advice, or for me to do something.”

Yes. I and many others had the same experience. Sometimes we would do them, other times not. But we always answered the phone.