High-Pockets listened intently.
"This poor guy has to sit on No. 7. That's the linotype nobody can do anything with. The poor devil had to lay off because she pretty nearly drove him crazy. Now you are the guy who can make a linotype behave." His voice was persuasive. "Won't you help this guy out for a few nights?"
For twenty years it had been High-Pockets' unbroken rule not to hire out for more than a day at a time. "Short-term contracts," he insisted. But now—well, the world was changed. Maybe this was to be the future of barnstorming—taming machines instead of foremen. If so, it meant he still had a place in the world. And to fulfill that destiny he would even accept a whole week's work. He took off his rain-wrinkled coat with a sigh.
He was waiting for time to be called when Arturius Wickware, the linotype machinist on the News, came up to him with short, mincing steps and a scowl that undoubtedly was a habit. "Are you the guy that has such wonderful control over a linotype?" he demanded. He wouldn't give High-Pockets the satisfaction of looking up at him. He scowled at High-Pockets' breast-bone.
High-Pockets was solemn as he stared over Arturius' head. "I get along well with them." He smiled gently then. "Somehow a linotype always does what I want it to do." He looked down and saw the crowd around him and decided he owed them an explanation. "My theory is that any piece of machinery is electrified by some force that I call personal electricity. I don't exactly know what that is but it seems to bind the piece of machinery as a whole. I think maybe it's a negative charge, and I think most men are charged positively with that same force, so that men get along well with machines. Opposite poles attract, you know."
Arturius Wickware sputtered, but now High-Pockets had to go on. "Sometimes a man comes along who happens to be negatively charged, and he can't handle a piece of machinery at all. But now I—you see this scar in the middle of my forehead—" he removed his faded hat, "I was struck by lightning on a freight train out in Utah, and I think it multiplied my 'personal' electricity potential a lot—maybe millions of times—so machinery just has to do what I want it to, because it wants to do it. You see?"
There was an odd silence; then the chairman spoke. "Old No. 7 started acting up when they built the first uranium pile south of town here, but it really went bad when it was hit by lightning that followed down the ventilation pipe two months ago."
High-Pockets' blue eyes opened wide. "Maybe its negative field was reversed by some stray rays from the pile, and then when the lightning hit it, it intensified the field so that the machine is now strongly positive. You know how it is," he said earnestly. "A body illuminated by ultraviolet light becomes positively charged, and even a hot body becomes positively charged by what they call thermionic emission. Well, that's okay. A linotype is exactly like a woman. It has a soul—if you know how to reach it."
Old Arturius snorted so loudly the electric relay on No. 7 made contact and the heating switch came on with a clatter. "You can work on No. 7 tonight," he said acidly. "Let's see if it's got a soul." He turned on his heel and stamped back to his bench....
It never occurred to High-Pockets to doubt his success with No. 7. He carefully hung his ten-year-old coat in an empty locker and made sure the pint of bourbon was safely in the inside pocket of the coat. Then he walked into the composing-room and over to No. 7, and stood for a moment looking her over. He frowned. "It's almost as if she was laying her ears back and getting ready to snarl at me," he said wonderingly.