“The office Dummy. He can’t hear a sound or say a word,” Chub stated in his ordinary voice, just at the man’s elbow. “But I’d forgotten that you were introduced to him the other day when you were over. He came last week, you know.”
The man gave Joan a half-smile of recognition. There was something puzzling about him. Perhaps there was about every deaf-mute. It really must be terrible to have to write everything you wanted to say, Joan mused. And not to be able to hear, but still he couldn’t hear the rumble and clatter of the presses, and that might be a blessing, though Joan liked it.
Joan recalled what Chub had told her of Dummy. That he had applied for the job in writing. “I do not speak,” he wrote, “but I can work. I can read proof. I do not have to talk to read proof.” He got the job.
“Dat new proofreader gives me de creeps,” said a voice behind Joan and Chub, and there was Bossy. “Never saying a word, like dat. Hit ain’t natural.”
“Well, it is for a deaf-mute,” explained the office boy.
They went on out to the cement-floored pressroom where the big presses were. They were roaring like thunder, and whirling endlessly back and forth, over and over. Little ridges of tiny blue flames, to speed up the drying of the ink, made blobs of color in the drabness. Leather straps above the presses were slap-slapping to a dull rhythm. It was a dim place, old, musty, ink-reeking, but romantic to Joan. And to think that to-day, this big press was multiplying Tim’s story for the thousands of Journal readers!
The place had a spell for Chub, too, for it was here that he chose to mention the mystery.
“Say, Jo, you remember what I said yesterday? Well, there’s nothing new for me to tell you. When there is, I will. It’s just a mystery, that’s all.”
“But what’s it about?” pleaded Joan. She hated to be kept in the dark.
“It’s—well, I guess I can tell you this much,” he granted. “It’s about—mistakes.” He shouted the last word, to be heard above the roar.