The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-07-06


 rapher.
 "Yes, you're right" said the steno- grapher who has begun to grow gray with his years of service; "the work of a good stenographer is mighty hard.
 But nerve counts in that business as we'll as any other.
 Let me tell you that there are very few all-round good court steno- graphers. Some of the best in the coun- try are right here in this city. but you can easily count those that are able to keep up with the, procession when ex- perts, doctors, alienists and other peo- pie who can talk off strings of Latin. French and other strange words and terms get on the stand.
 T hadn't been in the business long be- fore was warned to fight shy of expert testimony, technical hearings, com missions in lunaey and such things. But by and by I got so proficient that not much of anything in my law-office work stumped me and began to have a pretty good opinion of myself. S,&.f
 ''I knew French well, had enough Latin to wade along in a pretty deep puddle, had the law part of the busi- ness down as we'll as nine out of ten and even little medicine in my head.
 'I was 6oing regular law-offlce stenographer's work at the time. One day stenographer who was recognized as the kingpin of the trade here came to my office and asked me if would re- port for him the hearing of Wall Street case in one of the courts that
 afternoon. Now the very fact that he that tickled me very much and. seeing a good chance to break into the inner circle of the stenographic fraternity, consented on the instant.
 well, when I reached the court room was nearly scared out of my shoes. There were about seven lawyers on each side. and they were all more than pre- pared to argue every phase of a very hard case in the most technical lan- guage. ...ss a.@
 When the case got under way 1t was like a whirlwind, but I stuck to my work like a Trojan and got every Sy hpWh pCIIGGlly. EfSn EWHCtt the fourteen lawyers. more or less talked pretty much all at once and the Court put in questions and the witness managed to get into the sandwich once in great while, had everything down right.
 Then one of the lawyers asked a long question: rattling out his words like Calling gun pouring shot, and all the other thirteen lawyers began firing their share of the cannonade. knew was getting it all down In pothooks all right, but suddenly one of the law yers requested that the stenographer re- peat the question. Now I had that question down all right and iii such shape that I was per fectly able to translate 1t; but the suddenness with which that lawyers re- quest was made threw me clean off my feet. was completely rattIed, to put it plainly. knew that if I tried to read that question should shutter and stam- mer and fail. Fl 5 "I did have a lot of common sense left however, and began to play for time in which tosscooI down, If possible, ard N1tIi lI-dL luG1 lily iiCdu ! ASf5ttit tO turn over the leaves of my notebook pretending to hunt for the question. fumbled back and forth as coolly--on the surface. anvwav-as if were the oldest hand in the business at that sort of game, but all the time felt as If everybody in court was looking at me. All of a sudden the lawyer who had put that question said: Well, I'll withdraw | that question Imagine what deep breath os relief I took!
 There's another kind of nerve that pays in the business. had been doing some summer work for one of the big Philadelphia law firms whose regular stenographer was on long vacation. I had stipulated that I was to do nothing but office business for the lawyers, but
 one day there came up big case and | the man they had expected to do the re- porting went back on them at the last minute and I stepped into the breach. T had no idea what the case was to be and when I landed in the courtroom I was astounded. It was one of those ticklish lunacy commission hearings
 and the two principal witnesses were LuE blSSGSt ltl liiiS pdil VI stht country. "When those alienists got to work 1t was all up with me. One of them in particular nearly drove me, craey right there in my seat. ~ "He hurled out a collection of long, winded Latin and complicated terms of medicine that simply couldn't be re- corded by anybody who was not a won der But when was unable to get the whole word of phrase down in short hand I made mark of some sort and kept up the bluff in way. s
 "There were two or three other steno- graphers in the room and could see that they were looking at me with open eyes. well, the hearing was over at last and packed up and went home. "That night I studied up enough Of the subject to pick out the meaning of the first three or four pages. but when 1t came to doing the rest of that job I was simply up against it. There were whole pages where could hardly pick out three words to page. ,' tE
 "The next morning when went to the office faced the music as bold as brass and said to the head of the firm: @.s