flow just at the exact moment you desire to use it. A good shaking will sometimes remedy this, but not always. Again, you may have forgotten to fill it, and the pen runs dry—a contingency which must be guarded against by filling it regularly every morning. The ink may clog from various causes. With a moderate amount of care and attention, however, the fountain pen will be found to be almost indispensable to the shorthand writer. Use a fountain pen if you can, but be sure that it is a good one, suited to your hand. A fine point is generally to be preferred.
SIZE OF NOTES.
When alluding to note-books under a previous caption, we wrote of the perpendicular line in the middle of each page of the note-book. It has been found that note-books ruled in this manner tend to decrease the size of notes. The average stenographer writes his shorthand characters too large and this tendency is increased when he writes rapidly. Write as small as you reasonably can and let the characters be as close together as possible. Try to find your "stride," and stick to it. The shorter the distance the hand has to travel, the more quickly, of course, the distance can be overcome. So, large notes, by causing more frequent transition from line to line and from page to page, hinder speed. Don't flourish the pencil in the air, making invisible characters before beginning to write, but
