CHAPTER X.
TORMENTS OF TYPOGRAPHY.
In spite of Ned's declaration that he would tolerate no loungers, the office soon became a favorite gathering-place for the boys of the neighborhood; which fact contributed nothing to the speed or accuracy of the work. They made us a great deal of trouble at first, for few of them knew better than to take a type out of one box, examine it curiously, and throw it into another; or lift a page of type that had just been set up, "to see how heavy it was," and let it drop into a mass of pi. They got over this after a while, but they never did quite get over the habit of discussing all sorts of questions in a loud voice; and sometimes, when we happened to be setting type, and were interested in what they were talking about, fragments of the conversation would mingle in our minds with the copy before us, and the curious effect would horrify us in the proof.
For instance, Monkey Roe's mother had employed us to print her a few copies of Mrs. Opie's poem, "The Orphan Boy," which she had known since she was a child, and very greatly admired, but of which she had never had any but a manuscript copy. While I was setting it up, three boys were carrying on an animated discussion about the city fire department, and when I took a proof of my work, I found it read like this:
Stay, lady, stay, for mercy's sake,
And hear the Brick Church bell strike the 4th District. Ah! sure my looks must pity no by crackie Orph Bo Cataract Eight can't begin to throw the stream Red Rover Three can—Tis want that makes Reliance Five wash my cheek so pale at annual inspection.
Yet I was once a mother's pride, Three's men cut her hose at the Orchard street fire before Bix Six's air chamber busted my brave father's hope and joy.
But in the Nile's proud fight he sucked Archer's well dry in three minutes and a half, and I am now Assistant Foreman of Torrent Two with a patent brake on the Orphan Boy.
I am afraid if Monkey's mother had seen that, she would hardly have recognized it as the first stanza of her favorite poem. Instead of feeling sorry for spoiling my work, the boys seemed to think it was a good joke, and nearly laughed their heads off over it. They insisted on my printing a few copies of it, just as it was, for them to keep. Next time I saw Jack-in-the-Box, he showed me one of them pasted into a little old scrap-book that he kept under his chair. On the opposite page was one of our business-cards, as printed by Ned. Jack very kindly explained to me some of the mysteries of proof-reading.
"The next thing to be done," said Ned, when the office was fairly in running order, "is to get out Jimmy the Rhymer's poems. That's what we got up the establishment for, and it'll be more profitable than all these little puttering jobs put together. And, besides, Jimmy's awful poor and needs the money. I've been around to the book-stores and told them about it. Hamilton promises to take ten copies, and Hoyt twenty-five. When they see how good the poems are, they'll be sure to double their orders; and when the other stores see the book going off like hot cakes, they'll rush in and want to buy some, but they'll have to wait their turn. First come, first served."
There were enough of Jimmy's poems to make a little book of about sixty pages, and we all went to work with a will to set the type. It would have been a pretty long job for us, as it was, but Jimmy made it a great deal longer, and nearly drove us crazy, by insisting on making changes in them after they were set up. He could not understand how much extra work this made for us, and was as particular and persistent as if his whole reputation as an author had hung on each disputed comma. Sometimes when we had four pages all ready to print, he would bring in a new stanza, to be inserted in the first page of the form, which, of course, made it necessary to change the arrangement of all the others. At last Ned got out of patience.
"You try it yourself once," said he to Jimmy, "and you'll find out whether it's easy to make all these little changes, as you call them."
| THE MEDDLESOME POET. |
Jimmy secretly made up his mind that he would try it himself. He went to the office one day when we were not there, found four pages "locked up" ready for printing, and went to work to make a few corrections. As he did not know how to unlock the form, he stood it up on edge, got a ten-penny nail and a mallet, and tried to knock out an obnoxious semicolon.
The result was a sudden bursting of the form, which rattled down into ruin at his feet, and frightened the meddlesome poet out of his wits.
In his bewilderment, Jimmy scooped up a double handful of the pi and was in the act of pouring it pell-mell into one of the cases, when Phaeton, Ned, and I arrived at the door of the office.
Ned, who saw him first, and instantly comprehended the situation, gave a terrific yell, which caused Jimmy to drop the handful of type, some of which went into the case, and the rest spattered over the floor.
"Are you trying to ruin the office?" said Ned. "Don't you know better than to pi a form, and then throw the pi into the cases? After all the trouble we've had with your old poems, you ought to have more gratitude than that."
Jimmy was pale with terror, and utterly dumb.
"Hold on, Ned," said Phaeton, laying his hand on his brother's shoulder. "You ought to have sense enough to know that it must have been an accident of some sort. Of course Jimmy wouldn't do it purposely."
"Pieing the form may have been an accident," said Ned; "but when he scoops up a double handful of the pi and goes to pouring it into the case, that can't be an accident. And it was my case, too, and I was the one that did everything for him, and was going to bring him out as a poet in the world's history. If he had behaved himself, I'd have set him up in business in a little while, so he could have made as much money as Sir Walter Tupper, or any of those other fellows that you read to us about. And now, just look at that case of mine, with probably every letter of the alphabet in every box of it."
"But I tell you it must have been a mere accident," said Phaeton. "Wasn't it, Jimmy?"
"Suppose it was an accident," said Ned; "the question is, whose accident was it? If it had been my accident, I should expect to pay for it."
Phaeton took hold of his brother's arm with a quiet but powerful grasp, and led him to the door.
"You're needlessly excited, Ned," said he. "Go outside till you get cooled off." And he put him out and shut the door.
Then he asked Jimmy how it happened, and Jimmy told us about it.
"I'm sorry you poured any of it in the cases," said Phaeton. "For, you see, the cases have a different letter in every box, and if you take a handful of type like that and pour it in at random, it makes considerable trouble."
"Oh, yes; I knew all that before," said Jimmy; "but when the form burst, and I saw the type all in a mess on the floor, I was so frightened I lost my head, and didn't know what I was about. I wish I could pay for it," he added, as he left the office.
"Don't let it trouble you," said Phaeton.
For a long time Jimmy did not come near us again, and as he had carried off the copy of his remaining poems, that enterprise came to an end—for the time being, at least.
There was no lack of other jobs, but we sometimes had a little trouble in collecting the bills. Small boys would keep coming to order visiting-cards by the hundred, with their name on them in ornamental letters,—boys who never used any visiting-card but a long, low whistle, and never had a cent of money except on Fourth of July. When Phaeton or I was there, they were given to understand that a pressure of other work compelled us to decline theirs with regret; but, if they found Ned alone, they generally persuaded him that they had good prospects of getting money from some source or other, and so went away with the cards in their pockets.
There was no lack of advice, either. The boys who lounged in the office were always proposing new schemes. The favorite one seemed to be the publication of a small paper, which some of them promised to write for, others to get advertisements for, and others to distribute. After the book of poems had come to an untimely end, Ned was fierce for going into the paper scheme; but Phaeton figured it up, declared we should have to do an immense amount of work for about a cent an hour, and put an effectual veto on the plan.
Charlie Garrison, who, while the other boys only lounged and gossiped, "learned the case," and quietly picked up a good deal of knowledge of the trade, intimated one day that he would like to be taken into the partnership.
"Yes," said Ned; "there's work enough here for another man; but you'd have to put in some capital, you know."
"Put in capitals wherever they belong, of course," said Charlie; "begin proper names and every line of poetry."
"I mean money," said Ned. "Money's called capital, you know, when it's put into business. We put capital into this office, and you'd have to, if we took you into partnership."
"Oh, that's it," said Charlie, musingly. "Well, I suppose I could; we live on the Bowl System at our house; but I should hardly like to take it."
"The Bowl System? What's that?" said Ned. "Soup, or bread-and-milk, for every meal?"
"No; not that at all," said Charlie. "You see, on the highest shelf in our pantry there's a two-quart bowl, with a blue-and-gold rim around it. Whenever any member of the family gets any money, he puts it into that bowl; and whenever any of us want any money, we take it out of that bowl. I've seen the bowl full of money, and I've seen it when it had only five cents in it. The fullest I ever saw it was just before sister Edith was married. For a long time they all kept putting in as much as they could, and hardly took out anything at all, till the bowl got so full that the money slid off from the top. Then they took it all out, and went down town and bought her wedding things. And oh, you ought to have seen them! Stacks and stacks of clothes that I don't even know the names of."
"Then I suppose you could help yourself to all the capital you want, out of the bowl?" said Ned.
"Yes, I could," said Charlie; "but I shouldn't like to; for I am the only one of the family that never puts anything into it. Perhaps other people don't know it by that name, but brother George calls it living on the Bowl System."
"Why don't you put the money into the bank?" said Phaeton.
"Father had a lot of money in a bank once," said Charley, "but the bank broke, and he said he'd never put in any more."
"I wish we lived on the Bowl System at our house," said Monkey Roe. "It wouldn't be many days before I'd have a velocipede and a double-barrelled pistol."