This was printed from a line engraving made direct from Mr. Rogers' paste-up, and used "as is" to show how accurately his layouts for this type of work reach the composing-room.
A month later, in May 1931, Mr. Rogers returned his layouts with this note: "... I have only just been able to complete the designs I had begun.... One or two other combinations occurred to me, which I have also put in—but we could go on endlessly, almost, when once started on this kind of thing.... I would have built up the designs with impressions from sections of a slug, had you sent an inch or two of each unit; but it is perhaps better, though slower, to cut and paste proofs, as each cutting is a guide to the compositor as to how and where trimming or beveling the ornaments are necessary. But only a few such trimmings are required, and all the bevelings are at 45 degrees—as is the diagonal composition of the oak tree heads.
"If at all possible I would like to have a chance to revise proofs of these, before they are actually printed—but if that isn't feasible, then I must rely on the compositors getting the closest possible approximation to my pasted-up designs. As close setting as possible is the secret of most work of this kind. The various parts must hang together well—though I do not mind a slight indication at the joints that they are made of individual pieces of type. I once had an over-zealous electrotyper fill up all the joints with solder—and ruined the appearance of the design—it looked like a drawn one."
It wasn't possible to show Mr. Rogers what had been done with his layouts for the insert in Barnacles, which was essentially a surprise book distributed as a keepsake at a dinner in his honor.
The "fighting cocks," to cite one instance, were originally suggested by B.R. to be used to dress a page folio at the bottom of the page; in the insert they were raised to the top of the page and printed with his initials. Other slight adaptations of similar character were taken in that piece of printing.
"Typographic whimsy," wrote Carl Purington Rollins in B.R.—America's Typographic Playboy, in 1927, "is a pretty difficult achievement. The compositor at the case is too much concerned with the practical minutiæ of his craft to have much time for such trivialities, and the man who designs printing at a draughting board is apt to find his humor, if he attempts it in type, limping like a thrice-told jest. Mr. Rogers has had the advantage of enough familiarity with type to know what can be done, and he has been able at times to work with compositors who take a large and robust view of their calling."