once in the employ of my father, who used frequently to come
to our house to take down dictations. However this may be, the
machine had lain hidden by dust and the flotsam and jetsam of
the house for twenty years, when, as I have said, I came upon
it unexpectedly. Old man as I am--I shall soon be thirty--the
fascination of a machine has lost none of its potency. I am as
pleased to-day watching the wheels of my watch "go round" as
ever I was, and to "monkey" with a type-writing apparatus has
always brought great joy into my heart--though for composing
give me the pen. Perhaps I should apologize for the use here
of the verb monkey, which savors of what a friend of mine
calls the "English slanguage," to differentiate it from what
he also calls the "Andrew Language." But I shall not do so,
because, to whatever branch of our tongue the word may belong,
it is exactly descriptive, and descriptive as no other word
can be, of what a boy does with things that click and "go,"
and is therefore not at all out of place in a tale which I
trust will be regarded as a polite one.

The discovery of the machine put an end to my attic
potterings. I cared little for finding old bill-files and
collections of Atlantic cable-ends when, with a whole morning,
a type-writing machine, and a screw-driver before me I could
penetrate the mysteries of that useful mechanism. I shall
not endeavor to describe the delightful sensations of that
hour of screwing and unscrewing; they surpass the powers of
my pen. Suffice it to say that I took the whole apparatus
apart, cleaned it well, oiled every joint, and then put it
together again. I do not suppose a seven-year-old boy could have
derived more satisfaction from taking a piano to pieces. It was