|THE president of the North Park and Vandaliar Mining Company not long
ago got a letter from the superintendent which closed by saying that
everything was working splendidly. The ore body was increasing, and
the quality and richness of the rock improving with every foot. He also
added that he had constructed a sump in the mine.
The president having spent most of his life in military and political
affairs, had never found it necessary to use a sump, and so he didn't
know to a dead moral certainty what it was that the superintendent had
put in.
He hoped, however, that the expense would not cripple the company,
and that by handling it carefully, they might escape damage from an
explosion of the sump at an unlooked-for time.
He proceeded, however, to examine the unabridged, and found that it
meant a cistern, which is constructed at the bottom of a mine for the
purpose of collecting the water, and from which it is pumped.
The president, having posted himself, concluded to go and have a little
conversation with one of the directors, who is a druggist in the city,
and see if he knew the nature of a sump.
The president, in answer to the questions of the director relative to
the latest news from the mine, said that it was looking better all the
time, and that the superintendent had constructed a sump.
The director never blinked his eye. He acted like a man who has lived on
sumps all his life.
"Do you know what a sump is?" asked the president. "Why, of course,
anybody knows what a sump is. It's the place where they collect water
from a mine, and pump it from, to free the mine from water. A man who
don't know what a sump is, don't know his business, that's all I've got
to say."
The president looked hurt about something. He hadn't looked for the
conversation to assume just exactly the shape that it had. Finally he
said, "Well you needn't point your withering sarcasm at me. I know what
a sump is. I just wanted to see whether a man who had been in the pill
business all his life, knew what a sump was. I knew you claimed to know
almost everything, but I didn't believe you was up on that word. Now, if
it's a proper question, I'd like to know just how long you have been so
all-fired fluent about mining terms."
Then the director said that there was no use in putting on airs, and
swelling up with pride over a little thing like that. He, for one,
didn't propose to crow over other men who had not had the advantages
that he had, and he would be frank with the president, and admit that an
hour ago he didn't know the difference between a sump and a certiorari.
It seems that a passenger, who had come in on the same coach that
brought in the superintendent's letter, had casually dropped the remark
to the director that Smith had put a sump in the "Endomile," and the
director had lit out for a dictionary without loss of time, so that when
the two great miners got together, they were both proud and confident.
Each was proud because he knew what a sump was, and confident that the
other one didn't know.