In order to make room for the poetry something else, of course, had to be left out, and partly by chance and partly through the antagonism of the Captain, we omitted two paragraphs that Ed Smith had left on the stone for use in the next issue of the paper. One was a flattering comment on the new electric light company that was about to supply Hempfield and other nearby towns with current.
"Seems to me," said Fergus, "we've had enough electric light news for a while."
"Cut her out, then," said Nort, as though he owned the paper.
The other was a cleverly worded paragraph about the candidacy of a certain D. J. McCullum for the legislature. When the Captain saw it he snorted with indignation.
"A regular old Democrat!" he exclaimed. "Now what was Ed Smith thinking of—putting a piece like that in the paper?"
We little knew what consequences were to follow upon a matter so apparently trivial as the omission of these few sticks of type from the Star.
At last the forms were locked, and Nort and Fergus carried them over to the press. It was an exciting occasion. Fergus at the press!
Usually Fergus contents himself by going about wearing his own crown of stiff red hair, but on press days he takes down an antique derby hat, the rim of which long ago disappeared. Small triangular holes have been cut in the crown for ventilators, and the outside is decorated with dabs of vari-coloured printer's ink. This bowl of a helmet Fergus sets upon his head, tilted a little back, so that he looks like a dervish. He now selects a long black cigar—it is only on press days that he discards his precious pipe—and having lighted it holds it in his mouth so that it points upward at an acute angle. He avoids the smoke which would naturally rise into his left eye by inclining his head a little to one side. He tinkers the rollers, he examines the inkwells, he tightens in the forms. He is very dignified, very sententious. It is an important occasion when Fergus goes to press. At last, when all is ready, Fergus stands upright for a moment, a figure of power and authority.
"Let 'er go," he says presently.
Nort pulls the lever: the fly moves majestically through the air, the rollers clack, and the very floor shakes with the emotion, the pain, of producing a free press in a free country.