Septimus Hardon rose from his writing with a sigh, for he was far from sanguine of success, and would fain even now have given up his task entirely, so feeble seemed to him the likelihood of any advantage accruing; but in obedience to instructions from Mrs Septimus, old Matt rattled on about the future, thoroughly doing his duty in keeping the shrinking man to his part; and so they started.
They made their way out into Holborn, and then up Skinner-street, past the frowning walls of Newgate, and into the street of the same name; when old Matt could not get along for stopping to admire the various joints displayed, and giving his opinion upon their merits.
“Here, let’s go this way, sir,” he said, turning into Warwick-lane. “Pretty game this, sir, isn’t it? Slaughtered sheep, and murdered novels, and books of all sorts close together. Authors’ sheep’s-heads, and butchers’ sheep’s-heads cheek by jowl. Rum thing for both trades to get so close together. Regular bit of philosophy if you like to take it up, sir; stomach and brains, you see, food for both—books for the brains, meat for the stomach; and then backwards and forwards, one feeds the other, and one couldn’t get on without the other; and here they are situated close to the very heart of the City. Look at the circulation going on—wonderful, ain’t it, sir?”
Old Matt stopped by a slaughter-house, not to pity the simple animal just killed, but to point out sundry choice portions that might be had bargains, if they could have availed themselves of the opportunity.
“Wouldn’t do, though, to go about such a job as we have on hand carrying a sheep’s-head, would it, sir?” he observed to Septimus.
“No; pray come along, and let’s get our task over,” exclaimed the latter.
“To be sure,” said Matt, coming to himself, and the next minute they were in Paternoster-row. “Lots of my old friends here,” said Matt, stopping short in the middle of the narrow way, to be hustled by boys laden with sheets of paper fresh from the press, lads carrying reams, or newly-bound works tied between boards; men with blue bags over their shoulders heavily laden with books; men with oblong “mems” in their hands which they consulted as they hurried from swinging door to swinging door, collecting the publications of the different firms. Once the old man was nearly run over by a truck full of type-galleys driven by a pair of reckless imps of some neighbouring printing-office; while at least four times he came into contact with the fruit-baskets of the nymphs in stout boots and flattened bonnets, whose haunt is the labyrinth of learning known as “the Row.”—“Lots of my old friends here,” said Matt as his companion looked bewildered, and was thrust off the pavement; on to it again; into booksellers’ where he did not want to go; and once against the muddy wheel of a cab, whose driver roundly abused him for nearly getting himself injured.—“Lots of my old friends here. Ah, you needn’t mind a bit of pushing, sir—it’s a busy place. Now, you know, if I liked to hunt about, I could find more than one bit of my work here, for I’ve done things and bits of things that’s come out in more than half these places. All sorts of stuff; and what a sight of work a man can be put upon in a matter of fifty year, from playbills to prayer-books, and down again to penny-a-lining and posters! Law and physic’s been my strongest points: but there; I’ve been on your magazines, and newspapers, and three-volume novels, and pamphlets, and everything else that’s printed on a leaf, ’cept’ last dying-speeches and halfpenny songs; and I never did get down, quite so low as that. I’ve taken hold of author’s copy so queer that it’s made you scratch your head and torn the paper t’other way up to see which is tops and which is bottoms, and then back again, for you’ve been as wise as ever. Talk about ants and bluebottles running over the paper with inky feet, that’s nothing, sir. You’ve seen them painter-chaps, sir, graining the shetters of shops?”
Septimus, seeing that he was expected to say something, roused himself from his brown study, and nodded.
“Well,” continued Matt, “you see they have what they call a tool, though it’s only a flat brush made like a comb, and with that they make lines cross and across the panels, all about the same distance apart, and then they dab them lightly with a long soft brush to keep the grain from looking too stiff and hard. Well, I’ve had copy that’s looked as if the author had used one of these tools dipped in ink, and streaked it across and across the paper, and then dabbed it, not with a very soft brush, but with a very hard one, shoving in, too, a few smears and blots, just to fill up as knots and specimens of cross-grain. Up one goes to the overseer and asks him to help you, giving the other men a side-grin at the same time. He takes it, looks at it, turns it over, and then can’t make anything of it, though he won’t say so; for overseers must of course seem to know everything. So he sticks it back in your hand, and says he, ‘Go and make the best you can of it; for I’m busy.’ Well, you go back, and make the best you can of it; puzzles out one word, jumps at another, puts in two, and guesses two more, while you make a couple more out of the next line fit in somewhere after ’em; and so, one way or another, it gets scrambled up, and the proof goes to the reader, who cuffs his boy’s head because he blunders so over the stuff he can’t make head nor tail of, though he’s as much bothered as his boy; while, though some of them are clever, intelligent fellows, some of those readers, sir, have about as much imagination as a mop. They’re down upon a wrong letter, or bad pointing or spelling, and stick a big qy? against a bit of slack grammar, like lightning; but give ’em a take of stuff where the author goes a little out of the regular rut, and it bothers them as much as the bit of copy I’m talking about. Well, sir, corrections get made, and the proof is sent in to the author, who most likely don’t know it again; but he sends it back so as one has a better chance of getting it together; and so it goes on, backwards and forwards, till it’s all right, and they write ‘press’ in one corner, when it’s printed, and, as far as we’re concerned, there’s an end of it. Strange ways, ain’t they, sir?”
Septimus Hardon stared in a bewildered manner at the speaker, but did not answer.