IT was in the early days. I was not a college professor then.

I was a humble-minded young land-surveyor, with the world before me--to survey, in case anybody wanted it done. I had a contract to surveya route for a great mining-ditch in California, and I was on my way thither,by sea--a three or four weeks' voyage. There were a good many passengers,but I had very little to say to them; reading and dreaming were my passions,and I avoided conversation in order to indulge these appetites.

There were three professional gamblers on board--rough, repulsive fellows.

I never had any talk with them, yet I could not help seeing themwith some frequency, for they gambled in an upper-deck stateroom everyday and night, and in my promenades I often had glimpses of themthrough their door, which stood a little ajar to let out the surplustobacco smoke and profanity. They were an evil and hateful presence,but I had to put up with it, of course,There was one other passenger who fell under my eye a good deal,for he seemed determined to be friendly with me, and I could not havegotten rid of him without running some chance of hurting his feelings,and I was far from wishing to do that. Besides, there was something engagingin his countrified simplicity and his beaming good-nature. The first timeI saw this Mr. John Backus, I guessed, from his clothes and his looks,that he was a grazier or farmer from the backwoods of some western State--doubtless Ohio--and afterward when he dropped into his personal historyand I discovered that he WAS a cattle-raiser from interior Ohio,I was so pleased with my own penetration that I warmed toward him forverifying my instinct.

He got to dropping alongside me every day, after breakfast,to help me make my promenade; and so, in the course of time,his easy-working jaw had told me everything about his business,his prospects, his family, his relatives, his politics--in fact everything that concerned a Backus, living or dead.

And meantime I think he had managed to get out of me everythingI knew about my trade, my tribe, my purposes, my prospects,and myself. He was a gentle and persuasive genius, and this thingshowed it; for I was not given to talking about my matters.

I said something about triangulation, once; the stately wordpleased his ear; he inquired what it meant; I explained;after that he quietly and inoffensively ignored my name,and always called me Triangle.

What an enthusiast he was in cattle! At the bare name of a bull or a cow,his eye would light and his eloquent tongue would turn itself loose. As longas I would walk and listen, he would walk and talk; he knew all breeds,he loved all breeds, he caressed them all with his affectionate tongue.

I tramped along in voiceless misery whilst the cattle question was up;when I could endure it no longer, I used to deftly insert a scientific topicinto the conversation; then my eye fired and his faded; my tongue fluttered,his stopped; life was a joy to me, and a sadness to him.

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