The work did indeed go prosperously forward. Gutenberg, Faust, Hanau, and Martin Duttlinger,--the last named a Cathedral scholar who had assisted in printing at Dritzhn’s shop,--were occupied from early in the morning till late at night in cutting type and setting it up. Faust had also occasionally some of his workmen--a Hamburgher among them--in the printing hall. They wrought in two well-lighted, convenient rooms in the second story,--so surrounded by other rooms as not to be accessible to strangers,--which apartments they kept constantly locked. Step by step, the company went through in a few months what caused Gutenberg years of experimenting, as we in a few hours can read a book which cost the author the study of a life. Not that they really mastered everything as did their teacher. That which he himself elaborated, was indeed a part of his mind, his inventions being his thoughts embodied. Hence the propriety of giving him so prominent a place in this volume. The art cannot be fittingly portrayed without sketching its originator. Like soul and body, they belong together; it is impossible to picture one without the other. To describe the process by which Gutenberg taught his art, would be to repeat the progress of the Strasbourg firm, save that the Mentz printers were more hopeful, earnest, and intelligent, and did not so easily yield to obstacles; and also the difference that they were immediately advanced to movable type. “We are making fine headway,” said Faust to Gutenberg, when the works referred to had been printed. “Yes, but we sadly need a designer for our engravings. How I miss my Andreas Dritzhn, of happy memory, who did excellent service in this line at Strasbourg.” “Cannot some one be found to fill his place?” “I know of only one man that would do,” replied Gutenberg, “and that is young Peter Schoeffer, a teacher of penmanship, now residing in Paris. I must send him word to join us.” As the printing went on, Gutenberg encountered the old difficulty of the softening of the type, and, on being questioned by Faust respecting it, set his ingenious mind to work to remedy it. Turning to a drawer of odds and ends, and taking out some bits of metal, he said, “Suppose we make our type of lead!” Faust took up a strip, and, commencing a rude letter on the end of it, said, “This will do, assuredly. It is hard, and yet we can cut it, and it will not become soft, as does wood, by absorbing ink.” “We can at least test it,” said Gutenberg. “If it should not prove to be just what we need, it may suggest something useful. My progress has been made by a series of experiments; and because we fail once, is no reason for discouragement. We have only to try until we succeed.”