“Exactly,” said Mr Jabez. “You couldn’t make a machine to read and correct proofs, or revise a slip.”
“Of course not,” said Hallett.
“Of course not,” said Mr Jabez. “But, mind you, I’m not one of those idiots who rise up in arms against machinery, and I don’t say but what our friend might not have gone on and greatly improved his machine. For instance, he might have contrived another, to do away with the distribution and re-setting up of the type.”
“Yes,” said Hallett thoughtfully; “it might have been recast and replaced by mechanism.”
“And always have new type,” said Mr Jabez eagerly. “To be sure: a capital idea; but I don’t know, Hallett, I don’t know. They say you can buy gold too dearly. In the same way, you can make a time-saving process too expensive.”
“Certainly,” said Hallett thoughtfully; and I was glad to see now that he was pleased to meet the old man.
“It seems to me,” said Mr Jabez, passing his snuff-box, which Hallett received, and, to humour his visitor, partook of a pinch, “that an inventor ought to devote his attention to making machinery for doing away with a great deal more of our labouring mechanical work, and not the careful processes that require thought.”
“Printing, for instance?”
“Ye-es,” said Mr Jabez; “but that ground has been pretty well taken up. We have some good machines now, that do a lot of work by steam. Why, when I was a boy we used to have the clumsiest old presses possible to conceive. I don’t think they had been much improved since the days of Caxton.”
“And yet there is great room for improvement,” cried Hallett, with animation. “Mr Rowle, we saw very little of each other beyond business encounters, but I believe, sir, that I may place trust in your word?”