THE CAP THAT FITS.
"Gerald, dear," said my wife the other evening, "I wish you'd write and order some more notepaper; we've hardly any left."
"All right, Margaret. What sort do you want? The last lot was beastly—too thick to make into spills and not large enough for drawing up the fire."
"Well, here's a list of the different kinds they have in stock at Jones and Robinson's."
I took it from her and glanced through it. "What do you say to 'Cream Laid,' Margaret? I like the sound of that. It will make me feel so nice and cool in the hot weather to think of the rows of fresh-faced country girls, in their spotless white overalls, pouring the cream delicately over the paper. I wonder how they get it to stop exactly at the edge?"
"It wants a very cool head and steady hand, I expect," said Margaret; "they'd all be picked cream-layers, of course. But how would you like 'thick hand-made paper with deckle edges'? What are deckle edges, I wonder; and how is paper hand-made?"
"Rather like treading grapes, I fancy, only that's done by foot. I mean they smash up the pulp with a very heavy pestle in a huge——"
"Mortar!" cried Margaret triumphantly.
"Yes; but am I telling this story or are you? Well, and then they put it through a mangle——"
"Wurzel," said Margaret.
"Wrong—just a mangle, and roll it out flat, after which they deckle the edges."
"But how do they do that, Gerald?"
"Oh, they just call in the edge-deckler and say, 'See to 't that yon edges be deckled ere set o' sun,' and he sees to 't. His is a most important post, I believe."
Margaret came and sat on a tuffet by my chair.
"Sorry about wurzel," she said. "Now tell me all about machine-made paper, there's a dear. It will be so nice to be able to explain all this to Nat when he's older."
"Paper-making by machinery, my dear," I said graciously, "is a most complicated process. I won't puzzle you with all the details, but roughly the idea is to pulp up the—er—rags and so on in a huge sort of—er—bowl, and then to roll it out thin in the rolling-out machine."
Margaret thought this over. "It sounds just the same as the hand-made," she said.
"Oh, no," I said quickly; "it's all done by machinery, you see. Pistons and rollers and—er—mechanical edge-decklers and so on."
"And what does 'Linen Wove' mean?"
"They employ people to thread the paper with linen threads, my dear. A very delicate performance; that's why Linen Wove is so expensive. Azure Wove is, of course, done with blue flaxen threads. Silurian Bond is made by a fellowship of geologists, and for Chelsea Bank they have a factory on the bank of the Thames at Cheyne Walk. That's all I need tell you, though I know a lot more."
"I never realised before how awfully interesting paper-making could be," said Margaret gratefully. "Write and order me a good supply of Chelsea Cream Wove, will you, dear? Oh, and some other kind for yourself, to write your stories on. Don't forget."
"Very well; Chelsea Cream Wove for you. And what shall I have?"
Margaret's mouth twitched a little.
"Foolscap, I think, dear," she said.
Sandy (viewing doctor's bill). "But the bill is no richt, Sir. Ye've charged me for seven days instead o' six. Dinna ye mind I was deleerious one day an' was not aweer of your presence?"