"Phaeton wasn't so lucky as you, Fay, for there was no Patsy Rafferty to pull him out, and he was drowned, while his poor sisters stood on the tow-path and cried till they turned into poplar-trees."
We were all deeply interested in this remarkable story from Grecian mythology, told in good plain American, and from our report Holman was often called upon to repeat it to the other boys. It was this that gave Fayette Rogers the name of Phaeton.
The fate of the horizontal balloon for a time dampened Phaeton's ardor for invention, and he was willing at last to unite with Ned and me in an enterprise which promised to be more business-like than brilliant—the printing-office scheme.
Meanwhile, we had been doing what we could ourselves. The first necessity was a press. Ned, whom we considered a pretty good draughtsman, drew a plan for one, and he and I made it. There was nothing wrong about the plan; it was strong and simple—two great virtues in any machine. But we constructed the whole thing of soft pine, the only wood that we could command, or that our tools would cut. Consequently, when we put on the pressure to print our first sheet—feeling as proud as if we were Faust, Gutenberg, Schöfer, the Elzevirs, Ben Franklin, and the whole Manutius family rolled into one—not only did the face of the types go into the paper, but the bottoms of them went right into the bed of the press.
| NED'S PLAN FOR A PRESS. |
"It acts more like a pile-driver than a printing-press," said Ned, ruefully.
"It'll never do," said I. "We can't get along without Fay. When he makes a press, it will print."
"When Fay makes a press," said Ned, "he'll probably hire somebody else to make it. But I guess that's the sensible way. I suppose the boys would laugh at this thing, even if it worked well; it looks so dreadfully cheese-pressy."
"It does look a little that way," said I. "But Fay will get up something handsome, and I've no doubt we can find some good use for this—perhaps keep it in the corner for the boys to fool with when they call. They'll be certain to meddle with something, and this may keep their hands from the good one."