Quotation from: The Little Lady of the Big House

Written by: Jack London

From ten to eleven a stream of managers and foremen flowed in and out.
All were well disciplined in terseness and time-saving. As Dick
Forrest had taught them, the minutes spent with him were not minutes
of cogitation. They must be prepared before they reported or
suggested. Bonbright, the assistant secretary, always arrived at ten
to replace Blake; and Bonbright, close to shoulder, with flying
pencil, took down the rapid-fire interchange of question and answer,
statement and proposal and plan. These shorthand notes, transcribed
and typed in duplicate, were the nightmare and, on occasion, the
Nemesis, of the managers and foremen. For, first, Forrest had a
remarkable memory; and, second, he was prone to prove its worth by
reference to those same notes of Bonbright.