Adventures of Bobby Orde

  IX

  MR. DAGGETT

  The printing press, too, was now a success. What time Bobby could spare,he spent over his new work. In fact he would probably have printed outall his interest in the shape of cards for friends and relatives, didnot an incident spur his failing enthusiasm. The little tin box ofprinter's ink went empty. Bobby tried to buy more at Smith's where otherkinds of ink were to be had. Mr. Smith had none.

  "You'd better go over to Mr. Daggett's," he advised. "He'll let you havesome."

  Bobby crossed the street, climbed a stairway slanting outside a squarewooden store building and for the first time found himself in a printingoffice.

  Tall stands held tier after tier of type-cases, slid in like drawers.The tops were slanted. On them stood other cases, their queerly arrangedand various-sized compartments exposed to view. Down the centre of theroom ran a long table. One end of it was heaped with printed matter inpiles and in packages, the other was topped with smooth stone on whichrested forms made up. Shelves filled with stationery, cans and the likeran down one side the room. Beyond the table were two presses, a big anda little. In one corner stood a table with a gas jet over it. In anotherwas an open sink with running water. A thin man in dirty shirt-sleeveswas setting type from one of the cases. Another, shorter man at thestone-topped table was tapping lightly with a mallet on a piece of woodwhich he moved here and there over a form. A boy of fifteen was printingat the smaller of the presses. A huge figure was sprawled over the tablein the corner. In the air hung the delicious smell of printer's ink andthe clank and chug of the press.

  Bobby stood in the doorway some time. Finally the boy said something tothe man at the table. The latter looked up, then arose and came forward.

  He was of immense frame, but gaunt and caved-in from much stooping and aconsumptive tendency. His massive bony shoulders hung forward; his headwas carried in advance. In character this head was like that of a Jovecondemned through centuries to long hours in a dark, unwholesomeatmosphere--the grand, square, bony structure, the thick, upstandinghair, the bushy, steady eyebrows, the heavy beard. But the cheeksbeneath the beard were sunken; the eyes in the square-cut caverns werekind and gentle--and very weary.

  "I want to see if I can get some ink of you," requested Bobby, holdingout his little tin box.

  Mr. Daggett took the box without replying; and, opening it, tested withhis finger the quality and colour of what it had contained.

  "I guess so," said he.

  He led the way to one of the shelves and opened a can as big as abucket. Bobby gasped.

  "My!" he cried; "will you ever use all that?"

  Mr. Daggett nodded, and, dipping a broad-bladed knife, brought up, onmerely its point, enough to fill Bobby's tin box.

  "How much is it?" asked Bobby.

  "Let's see, you're Jack Orde's little boy, aren't you?" asked Daggett.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well, that's all right, then. It's nothing."

  "Oh, thank you!" cried Bobby, overwhelmed. The man nodded his massivehead. "Please," ventured Bobby, hesitating, "please, would you mind if Istay a little while and watch?"

  "'Course not," assured Mr. Daggett. "Stay as long as you want."

  He returned to his table and forgot the little boy. An hour later helooked up. Bobby was still there standing in the middle of the floor,staring with all his might. Mr. Daggett pulled together his great frameand arose.

  "Have you a printing press?" he asked Bobby.

  "Yes, sir," replied Bobby--"it's only a little one--to print two lines,"he added.

  "Do you like printing?"

  "Oh!" burst out Bobby enthusiastically, "it's more fun than anything!"

  "I'd like to see some of your work," said Mr. Daggett a flash ofamusement flickering in his deep eyes.

  Bobby felt in his pocket and gravely presented a card.

  _"Mr. Robert Orde. Job Printer."_

  "Why," said Mr. Daggett, surprised, "this is pretty well done. I didn'tknow you could make ready so well on those little presses."

  "What's 'make ready'?" asked Bobby.

  "Why, regulating the impression so that all the letters are printedevenly."

  "They didn't for a long time," sighed Bobby. "I had lots of trouble."

  "How did you make it go?" asked Mr. Daggett, interested.

  Bobby explained the pasting of the slips of paper.

  "Who taught you that?" asked Mr. Daggett sharply.

  "Nobody; I just thought of it."

  Two hours later, when the noon whistles blew, Bobby said good-bye to hisfriend after a most interesting morning. Mr. Daggett had showed himeverything. He explained how in the type-cases the capital lettersoccupied little compartments all alike and at the top, but how the smallletters were arranged arbitrarily in various-sized compartments.

  "You see," said he, "we use the _e_ oftenest, so that is the largest andis right in the middle. And here is the _a_ near it, but a littlesmaller. A man has to learn where they are."

  Then they watched the compositor setting type in the metal "stick" withthe sliding end. The compositor showed Bobby how he could tell when theletters were right side up by feeling the nicks in the type, without thenecessity of looking; how he used the leads to space between the lines.His hands flew from one compartment of the type case to the other andthe type clicked sharply. In a moment the stick was full. All threewalked over to the "composing table" of stone. Here Bobby watched thetype placed in the huge iron frame, which was then filled in with thewooden blocks. The wedge-shaped irons locked it. Finally the block andmallet went over the whole surface to even it down.

  Bobby saw proof taken. He watched the small press in operation. It wasworked by a foot lever. The round ink plate which automatically made aquarter turn at each impression and the double automatic ink-rollerswere a revelation to him. All the boy had to do was to insert andwithdraw the paper and push down with his foot. And the pressure was soexact and so delicate and so brief--as though the type and the platencoquetted without actually touching; and the imprint was so true andclear! Even on the thin paper, the shape of the type did not stampthrough!

  He could have watched for an hour, but shortly the job was finished, sohe moved on to look at the coloured inks and the fascinating variety ofpapers and cards and envelopes.

  This latter occupation kept him busy for a long time. He had notrealized that so many shapes and kinds of letters could exist. Mr.Daggett told him their names and sizes--nonpareil, brevier, agate, pica,minion and a dozen others which Bobby could not remember but which hefound exotic and attractive. Especially was he interested in the postertype, made of wood. One letter was bigger than the whole form of hislittle press.

  When he left, Mr. Daggett gave him a small heavy package.

  "Here you are," said he. "Here's an old font of script. It's old and tooworn for my use, but you can fool with it."

  Bobby was delighted. He could hardly wait to get home before undoing thepackage. The font formed a compact quadrilateral wound around the edgeswith string. The letters were all arranged in order--four capital A's--AA A A--then the Bs, and so on. It differed from his own font. The onethat came with his press had just three of each letter--large or small.This varied. For instance, there were twenty _s_s, and only two _q_s.Bobby procured his tweezers and began to set up his own name. He had nostick so he got out the form with the two narrow wooden groves. To hisdismay the type would not fit. They were at least a quarter inch longerthan his own.

  "Why so solemn, Bobby?" enquired his father at lunch a few minuteslater. "What's wrong?"

  "My printing press isn't a real one," broke out Bobby. "It's a _toy_one! I don't _like_ toys!"

  "Oh, ho!" cried Mr. Orde. "Don't like toys, eh! How about the engine andcars, and the tin soldiers?"

  "I don't like them any more, either," insisted Bobby stoutly.

  "All right," suggested Mr. Orde, winking at his wife. "Of course thenyou won't want them any more: I'll just give them away to some otherlittle boy."

>   "All right," assented Bobby with genuine and astonishing indifference.

  Bobby laid the little press away, but he could not resist thefascination of Mr. Daggett's printing office. One day he came from itbearing an inky and much-thumbed catalogue. He fairly learned it byheart--not only the machines, from the tiny card press to the beautifulfifty-dollar self-inker beyond which his ambition did not stray, butalso all the little accessories of the trade--the mallet, the patentquoins, the sticks, the type-cases, the composing stones, the rollermoulds and compositions, the patent gauge-pins, the lead-cutters, theslugs. And page after page he ran over the type in all its sizes and inall its modifications of form. These things fascinated him and held himwith a longing for them, like revolvers and razors and carpenter'schisels and peavies and all other business-like tools of a trade. Theirvery shapes were the most appropriate and romantic shapes they couldpossibly have assumed. He made lists. At first they were elaborate, andincluded the big foot press and four fonts of type and three colours ofink and fixings innumerable. They then shrank modestly by gradationsuntil they stuck at the 5x7 form. Bobby would not have cared for a presssmaller than that, for he wanted to print real things, like bill-headsand whist cards and perhaps a small newspaper. His little heart throbbedwith a complete enthusiasm.

  "When I grow up I think I'd like to be a printer like Mr. Daggett," hesaid wistfully.

  "Oh, no, you wouldn't," said Mr. Orde. "It's a poor trade--no money init here--and you'd have to stay in the house all the time. You wouldn'twant to be a printer, Bobby."

  "Yes I would," repeated Bobby positively.