ay, say." Janin was a little breathless at the
rapidity with which things seemed to get settled by this boyish, very
boyish, young man, but as they were apparently really settled he could
only say, "All right."

Now the reason that the new typewriter boy could not begin until next
Tuesday--this was on a Friday--was that he had in the meantime to learn
to write on a typewriter! Trivial matter, of course, in connection with
becoming a mining engineer, but apparently necessary. So learning what
make of machine he would have to use in the office, he stopped, on his
way to his room, at a typewriter shop, rented a machine of proper make,
and by Tuesday had learned to use it--after a fashion.

That kind of boy could not remain for long a typist in the office of a
discerning man like Louis. Perhaps certain idiosyncrasies of spelling
and a certain originality of execution on the machine helped bring about
a change of duties. But chiefly it was because of a better reason. This
reason was made especially clear by an incident connected with an
important mining case in which Janin was serving as expert for the side
represented by Judge Curtis Lindley, famous mining lawyer of San
Francisco. The papers which indicated the line of argument which Judge
Lindley and Mr. Janin were intending to follow came to Hoover's desk to
be copied. As he wrote he read with interest. The mine was in the Grass
Valley region that he knew so well. He not only copied but he remembered
and thought. The result was that when the typewriter boy delivered the
papers to the mining engineer they were accompanied by the casual
statement that the great expert and the learned attorney were all wrong
in the line of procedure they were preparing to take! And he proceeded
to explain why, first to Mr. Janin's indignant surprise but next to his
great interest, because the explanation involved the elucidation of
certain geologic facts not yet published to the world, which the
typewriter boy had himself helped to discover during his work in the
Grass Valley region.

The outcome was that Janin and his new boy went around together to Judge
Lindley's office where after due deliberation the line of argument was
altered. The further result was that the boy parted from his typewriter,
first to begin acting as assistant to various older staff men on trips
to various parts of the Coast for mine examinations, then to make minor
examinations alone, and finally to handle bigger one