IV
THE PRINTING PRESS
Next week was Bobby's birthday. He received many gifts, but as usual,saved the biggest package until the last. It had come wrapped in stoutmanila paper, tied with a heavy cord, and ornamented with the redsticker and seals of the Express Company. With some importance Bobbyopened his new knife and cut the string. The removal of the wrapperdisclosed a light wooden box. This was filled with excelsior, which inturn enclosed a paper parcel. A card read:
"For Bobby on his eleventh birthday, from Grandpa and Grandma."
Wrought to trembling eagerness by the continued delays, Bobby tore offthe paper. Within was a small toy cast-iron printing press. Itsink-plate was flat and stationary. Its chase held two wooden groovesinto which the type could be clamped by means of end screws. Themechanism was worked by a small square lever at the back. Bobby openeda red pasteboard box to discover a miniature font of Old English type; around tin box to uncover sticky but delicious-smelling printer's ink; apackage to reveal the ink-roller and a parcel to complete the outfitwith a pack of cheap pasteboard cards.
"What do you think of that?" cried Mrs. Orde.
"Now you'll be able to go into business, won't you?" said his father."You might make me twenty-five calling cards for a starter."
Immediately breakfast was finished, then Bobby took his printing pressupstairs and installed it on his little table. He would have liked verymuch to show Celia his gifts, but this Mrs. Orde peremptorily forbade.
After some manipulation he loosened the chase and laid it on the table.Then he began to pick out the necessary type and arrange it in the uppergrove to spell his father's name. The replacement of the chase was easyafter his experience in taking it out. Ink he smeared on the top plate,according to directions, rolling it back and forth with the compositionroller until it was evenly distributed. Nothing remained now but toadjust the guides which would hold the cards on the tympan. Bobbypassed the inked roller evenly back and forth across the face of thetype, inserted a card and bore down confidently on the lever. Hecontemplated this result:
Besides the transpositions and inversions, the impression itself wasblurred and imperfect and smeared with ink.
After the first gasp of dismay, Bobby set to work in the doggedanalytical mood which difficulties already aroused in him. The remedyfor the inversion was plain enough. Bobby changed the type end for endand turned the R and the E right side up, but he worked slower andslower and his brow was wrinkled. Suddenly it cleared.
"Oh, I know!" said he aloud. "It's just like the looking-glass!"
Satisfied on this point, he finished the resetting quickly and triedagain. This time the name read correctly but it slanted down the cardand was blurred and inky. Bobby fussed for a long time to get the linestraight. Experiment seemed only to approximate. One end persisted inrising too high or sinking too low. The problem was absorbing and allthe time Bobby was thinking busily along, to him, original lines. Atlast, by means of a strip of paper and a pencil he measured equidistantsfrom top and bottom of the platen, adjusted the guides in accordance andso that problem was solved. Bobby, flushed and triumphant, addressedhimself to remedying the blurring.
"Too much ink," said he.
Obviously the way to remedy too much ink was to rub some of it off andthe directest means to that end was the ever-useful pocket handkerchief.The paste proved very sticky and the handkerchief was effective only atthe expense of great labour. Bobby ruined three more cards before heestablished the principle that superfluous ink must be removed not onlyfrom the plate but from the roller and type as well.
But now further difficulties intervened before perfection. Some of theletters printed heavily and some scarcely showed at all. Here Bobbyentered the realm of experiments which could not be lightly solved inthe course of a half hour. He tried raising the type to a common leveland locking them as tightly as possible, but always they slipped. Heattempted to insert bits of paper under what proved to be the shortertypes. This improved the results somewhat, but was nevertheless far fromsatisfactory. By now he had learned not to use a fresh card every time.The first half-dozen were printed back and forth, front and behind.Bobby was smeared with more ink than the printing press. Scissors,pencils, paper, used cards and type were scattered everywhere. All thetime his fingers were working his brain, too, was busy, searching backfrom the result to the cause, seeking the requisite modification. Mr.Orde, returning at noon, burst out laughing at the sight.
"Well, youngster," said he, "how do you like being a printer?"
"Oh Bobby!" cried Mrs. Orde behind him. "You are a _sight_! Don't youknow it's time to get ready for lunch?"
Bobby looked up in bewildered surprise. Lunch! Why he had hardly begun!His father was chuckling at him.
"Benzine will take it off," said Mr. Orde to his wife.
Bobby caught at the hint.
"Will benzine take off the ink?" he cried eagerly.
"It's supposed to," replied his father; "but in your case----"
"Can I have a little, in a bottle, and a toothbrush?" begged Bobby. Hesaw in a flash the solution of the ink problem.
"We'll see," said Mrs. Orde. "Come with me, now."
They disappeared in the direction of the bathroom. Mr. Orde examined thecards with some amusement.
"Well, sonny," said he to Bobby at lunch. "The printing doesn't seem tobe a howling success. What are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know," replied Bobby; "but I'll fix it all right yet."
Bobby was busy with his birthday party all that afternoon, but nextmorning he was afoot even before the Catholic Church bell called him.The press occupied him until breakfast time, but he made small progress.His father's morning paper filled him with envy by reason of its clearimpression. After breakfast he begged a tiny bottle of benzine and anold toothbrush from his mother, and went at it again for nearly an hour.The benzine worked like a charm. The type came out bright as new and theold ink dissolved readily from the platen and roller. Bobby took notethat he should have cleared them the day before, as a night's neglecthad left them sticky. With it all he seemed to have arrived at a deadwall. All his limited mechanical ingenuity was exhausted and still theletters printed either too deep or too light. About half-past nine hecleaned up and went down to the Ottawa.
His friends there were all sitting under the trees before the hotel,resting rather vacantly after a hard romp. Celia perched high on a root,her curls against the brown bark, her hat dangling by its elastic from aforefinger, her lips parted, her eyes vacant. Gerald leaned gracefullyagainst the trunk. Bobby sat cross-legged on the ground watchingher--and him. Kitty and Margaret reclined flat on their backs, gazing upthrough the leaves. Morris alone showed a trace of activity. He hadfished from his pockets the short, blunt stub of a pencil, a penny and apiece of tissue paper. The latter he had superimposed over the penny andby rubbing with the pencil was engaged in making a tracing of thepattern on the coin. Through his preoccupation Bobby at last becamecognizant of this process. He sat and watched it with increasinginterest.
"By Jimmy!" he shouted leaping to his feet.
"What is it?" they cried, startled by the abrupt movement.
"I got to go home," said Bobby.
They expostulated vehemently, for his departure spoiled the even numberfor a game. But he would not listen, even to Celia's reproachful voice.
"I'll be back after lunch," he called, and departed rapidly. Duke arosefrom his warm corner, stretched deliberately, yawned, glanced at thechildren, half wagged his tail and finally trotted after.
Bobby rushed home as fast as he could; broke into the house like awhirlwind; tore upstairs and, breathless with speed and the excitementof a new idea, flung himself into the chair before his little table. Hehad seen the solution. To the flash of embryonic creative instinctvouchsafed him, Morris's penny had represented type, the inequalities ofits design were the inequalities of alignment over which he hadstruggled so long and the pressure of the pencil and tissue paperparalleled the imposi
tion of the card on the letters. But in the case ofMorris's penny the type did not conform to the paper and the pressure,_the paper conformed to the type_.
His brain afire with eagerness, Bobby first stretched several cleansheets of paper over the platen and clamped them down; then he inked thetype and pressed down the lever. Thus he gained an impression on theplaten itself. At this point he hesitated. On his father's desk downstairs was mucilage, but mucilage was strictly forbidden. The hesitationwas but momentary, however, for the creative spirit in full blast doesnot recognize ordinary restrictions. With his own round-pointed scissorshe cut out little squares of paper. These he pasted on the platen overthe letters whose impression had been too faint. A few moments adjustedthe guides. Bobby inked the type and inserted a fresh card. The momentof test was at hand.
He paused and drew a long breath. From one point of view the matter wasa small one. From another it was of the exact importance of a littleboy's development, for it represented the first fruits of all thehereditary influences that had silently and through the smallexperiences of babyhood, led him over the edge of the dark, warm nest tothis first independent trial of the wings. He pressed the lever gentlyand took out the card. It was not a very good job of printing; the inkwas not quite evenly distributed, the type were so heavily impressedthat they showed through the reverse of the card like stamping; _buteach letter had evidently received the same amount of pressure!_
Bobby uttered a little chuckle of joy--he had not time for more--andplunged into the rectification of minor errors. And by noon the presswas working steadily, though slowly, and a very neat array of _Mr. JohnOrdes_ was spread out on the window drying.
The game was absorbing. Bobby brushed his type with the benzine andtoothbrush; distributed it and set up another name--Miss Celia Carleton.He had printed nearly a dozen of these when his mother's voice behindhim interrupted his labours.
"Robert," said the voice sternly, "what are you doing with thatmucilage?"