robust to do, and find it. I know the argot of the quartz-mining
and milling industry familiarly; and so whenever Bret Harte
introduces that industry into a story, the first time one of his
miners opens his mouth I recognize from his phrasing that Harte got
the phrasing by listening--like Shakespeare--I mean the Stratford
one--not by experience. No one can talk the quartz dialect
correctly without learning it with pick and shovel and drill and
fuse.

I have been a surface-miner--gold--and I know all its mysteries,
and the dialect that belongs with them; and whenever Harte
introduces that industry into a story I know by the phrasing of his
characters that neither he nor they have ever served that trade.

I have been a "pocket" miner--a sort of gold mining not findable in
any but one little spot in the world, so far as I know. I know
how, with horn and water, to find the trail of a pocket and trace
it step by step and stage by stage up the mountain to its source,
and find the compact little nest of yellow metal reposing in its
secret home under the ground. I know the language of that trade,
that capricious trade, that fascinating buried-treasure trade, and
can catch any writer who tries to use it without having learned it
by the sweat of his brow and the labor of his hands.

I know several other trades and the argot that goes with them; and
whenever a person tries to talk the talk peculiar to any of them
without having learned it at its source I can trap him always
before he gets far on his road.

And so, as I have already remarked, if I were required to