“Let me try once more to explain the use,” pleasantly replied Gutenberg. “Suppose the letters of the alphabet were tied together so that you could not separate them, how could you spell words? The letters on a block cannot be taken apart to form other words; but with the separate types it is very different;” and to illustrate his meaning he set up a word in type, printed with it, took the letters apart, or “distributed” them, and framed another word. Although slow to be convinced, his associates finally acknowledged the necessity of movable type and began to acquire some degree of skill in making them. An advance on the method by cords and wire, was Gutenberg’s invention of a frame with wedges to keep the types in place. This had the approbation of his partners. It was a great gain, and there was much congratulation when he succeeded in firmly adjusting the _stucke_ so that they had all the advantage of the solid block, with none of its disadvantages. Taking impressions of the type on paper by friction was slow and unsatisfactory; and Gutenberg, after many experiments, contrived a press to imprint with, and employed a skillful mechanic to make it. This saved, besides other labor, the trouble of pasting the blank backs of the leaves together, as both sides of the paper were imprinted. A distinguished writer, who assures us that he has had access to the archives of Strasbourg, thus vividly describes this discovery; “Months and years had been consumed--his fortune also and the funds of the association--in patient experiments, in successes, and in reverses. At length, having made a small model of a _press_ which appeared to him to combine all the conditions of printing as he then understood it, he hid the precious miniature under his cloak, and, entering the city, went to a skillful turner in wood and in metal, named Conrad Sachspach, who dwelt at Merchants’ Cross-roads, to ask him to make one of a large size. He left the secret in the machine, only telling him that it was a contrivance by which he proposed to accomplish some _chefs d’œuvre_ of art and mechanics of which a slower process was known. The artisan, taking, turning, and re-turning the model in his hands, with a smile of disdain at the rough sketch completed by Gutenberg, said to him, with a bantering air:-- “‘This is only a simple wine-press that you ask me to make, Master John!’