rters--he counted himself one of them--wrote their stories. He
learned that everything written for a newspaper is a "story," everything
from a three-line item about a meeting of the Colorado State society to
a banner-line murder.

He was fascinated by a reporter whom P. Q. called Brennan and who worked
at a typewriter close to where he was sitting. Brennan, thin-faced,
about thirty, John judged, turned out page after page of typewritten
copy, stopping at the completion of each page to throw back his head and
shout: "Boy! Oh, BOY!" at the ceiling. In response to this call a copy
boy appeared and carried the page to P. Q. As he worked he smoked
cigarettes, lighting each fresh one from the stub of the one that
preceded it. These cigarettes he carefully stood on end on the desk as
his fingers pounded at the typewriter.

When he took a deep inhalation of tobacco smoke during his writing
Brennan paused and gazed, dreamy-eyed, out into space. Then suddenly, he
stood his cigarette on end again and attacked the typewriter keys
furiously. John noticed that Brennan, like the man with the headgear,
used only one finger of each hand in typewriting.

Along in the afternoon, when he had stopped hammering at his machine, he
turned to find John staring at him. Stretching out his arms, yawning, he
asked:

"New man?"

John said he was.

"First time?"

John said it was.

From Brennan, John learned many things. He learned that P. Q. had an
unswerving prejudice against reporters who used the touch system in
typewriting.

"He says they use a typewriter like it was a piano and get into the
habit of not looking at what they are writing," Brennan explained. "He
says the touch system has ruined more reporters than shorthand."

"Why shorthand?" asked John. "I thought----"

"I know, you thought every good reporter should write shorthand," said
Brennan. "Well, that's one thing P. Q. and I agree on. I've seen a lot
of them in my time and I've never seen a reporter who wrote shorthand
who was a real star man. Writing shorthand kills your imagination. All
you write is what other people tell you and exactly as they said it.
Somehow, a shorthand man doesn't get pep into his stuff, take it from
me."

John thought he understood.

"You work hard and long in this game and it makes an old man of you
before your time," Brennan continued. "But it's a great game. Once it
gets into your blood you're a newspaper man for life.

"Generally speaki