As Matt came up, the gentleman was balancing a peacock’s feather upon the tip of his nose, to the accompaniment of a popular air performed by a partner upon drum and pan-pipes—the arrangement of the air apparently necessitating more muscular action with the arms than from the lungs; for though now and then a shrill and piercing note was heard from the pipes, it was not often, while the rumble of the beaten drum was incessant. The next performance was the balancing and twirling of a barrel on the acrobat’s feet, he all that time lying down upon a cushion in a very uncomfortable, determination-of-the-blood-to-the-head position, what time the band, tucking his pipes inside his coat and setting his drum on end, came round the attentive circle, shaking the performer’s greasy, private-life cap in the observers’ faces, after the fashion of zealous deacons in churches of high proclivities—save that in this case the cap was of very common cloth, while in the other the little bags would probably be of red velvet, lined with white satin.
The band stopped opposite old Matt, who had loudly applauded the performance, for he had felt so at peace with the world at large, that he was in the humour to be pleased with any and everything. So the old man thrust a willing hand into his pocket, and the band smiled expectant; but the next moment Matt’s face turned very serious, and with the loud taunt of the band ringing in his ears, he shuffled down Castle-street and into Cursitor-street, in the direction of the office where he had a job; far more piercing than the shrillest note of the pipes, and more impressive than the heaviest bang of the drum, came the words of the musician:—
“Well, if I hadn’t ha’ had a brown I’d ha’ said so, and not made believe.”
For the old printer’s pocket did not contain a coin of any description, the last two having been expended for his simple meal; so hurrying along the old fellow looked very serious for quite fifty yards; then he began to whistle; then he stopped at a lamp-post, but wrenched himself away again directly and hurried down Fetter-lane, for the clocks were striking two, and his dinner-hour was over. But before turning into Typeland Matt entered into one of those well-known places of business with swinging doors, and shuffling up to the pewter-covered counter, asked for a pint of porter on trust.
And went away wiping his mouth upon the back of his hand, of course? Nothing of the kind; for the landlord smiled pleasantly, shook his head, and declared that whenever he gave trust he lost a customer. So old Matt slinked away, and soon came to another swing-door, when, passing through, a far different odour saluted his nostrils—an odour commingled of steam, oil, treacle, glue, turpentine, stale breath, fresh paint, wet paper, and gas; where there was a continual noise of hissing, and rumbling of wheels, rattling of straps and bands, with a constant vibration of the great building, which heavily brooded over the reeking mass, as if hatching earthquakes. Up a staircase, whose walls shone with the marks of inky and oily hands, past dirty-faced boys in paper-caps and aprons, whose shirt-sleeves were rolled high above their elbows; past a window, a glance through which showed mighty engine and machine rushing off their work in never-tiring mode, wheels spinning, cylinders slowly revolving, with white sheets of paper running in, printed sheets running out, to be piled in stacks; here the portion of a magazine whose pages should rivet the attention of some fair reader; there the newspaper, to be spread in thousands through the length and breadth of the land; while again, close at hand, lumbered the heavy press to turn off by hand copies of the broad-margined, large-typed, thick-papered Chancery bill, whose legible words should nearly drive some weary disputant mad, although but a short time before its well-paid pages and open work had made glad the heart of a round-shouldered compositor—sower of the dragons’ teeth of knowledge. Up still went old Matt Space—past boys bearing proof-sheets—boys who read copy in a sing-song, nasal, pointless twang to keen-eyed readers, ready to give angry stabs at ill-spelt words, to stick their pens through eyeless i’s, and condemn the mutilated letters to the melting-pot; past pressmen toiling—down, Benjamin-Franklin-like, with heavy forms of type; up—up, till he reached the top story, where, beneath rows of skylights, men formed themselves into the hotbeds that generated disease, as they toiled on day after day at the cases of type, before a pair of which old Matt posted himself, took a pinch of snuff, and then prepared for work.
In a few more minutes he was hard at his task, picking up letter by letter the component parts of the words spoken the day before at a public meeting, where an orator discoursed at length upon the financial greatness of this our country; after which he dived into statistics, so that the old compositor was soon realising the facts, and revelling in sums of money eight figures in length, and that, too, without a single penny in his pocket.
Click, click; click, click; letter after letter passing into the metal composing-sticks; thirty men busily engaged, and not a word spoken beyond the occasional muttering whisper of the worker, who sought to impress his MS more fully upon his mind by reading it aloud; while old Matt, poring over his copy by the aid of a pair of horn spectacles, now and then paused for a stimulator from the snuff loose by accident in his coat-pocket hanging from a nail in the wall—snuff that had to be hunted into corners and brought forth in pinches, the greater proportion of which consisted of flue and crumbs.
“Pound, nine, comma; eight, four, three, comma; six, four, two,” muttered the old man, arranging the figures. “Ah, bless my soul! now, what could I do with nine—nearly ten millions of money? And that sum’s nothing at all. Poverty? Pooh! all humbug! There isn’t such a thing; it’s all a mistake. Somebody’s got more than his share, and made things crooked.”
Old Matt finished his task, and, on applying to the overseer for a fresh supply, he was set to correct a slip proof, when, taking the long column of type from which it had been printed, the old man was soon busy at work once more, correcting a misspelt word in this paragraph, removing a broken letter in that, and all the while muttering to himself, to the great amusement of the other men. But all at once he stopped short and stared at his work, looked eagerly round the office, as if to assure himself that all was real, and then devoured the words before him. Then he went on with his work in a flurried, nervous way, dropping words, misplacing letters, scattering type upon the floor, and making his fellow-workmen look up with wonder—attentions that made the old man more nervous and fidgety; until, as his nervousness increased, so did his task become more difficult of completion, the perspiration standing upon his forehead, and the expression of his face growing pitiful in the extreme.
But it was complete at last, though, through anxiety, old Matt had been twice as long as he would have been in an ordinary way; and then secretly tearing off a portion of the proof, he slipped it into his pocket, made an excuse to the overseer that he was unwell, and hurried into the street, where he jostled first one, and now another; now walking in the road, now upon the pavement, but all the while with one hand clasping tightly a scrap of paper he held in his pocket. As to what was going on around him he seemed so utterly oblivious that twice over he was nearly knocked down by passing vehicles. Again and again he would have stopped, but for the busy throng constantly hurrying along the street; and for the time being the old man strongly resembled a cork tossed about in some busy eddying stream; but he had evidently some object in view, for he kept pressing on in one particular direction, and his lips were incessantly in motion, forming words that savoured continually of that much-sought-for object—money.