"Well, if I hadn't ha' had a brown I'd ha' said so, and not made believe." For the old printer's pocket did not contain a coin of any description, the last two having been expended for his simple meal; so hurrying along the old fellow looked very serious for quite fifty yards; then he began to whistle; then he stopped at a lamp-post, but wrenched himself away again directly and hurried down Fetter-lane, for the clocks were striking two, and his dinner-hour was over. But before turning into Typeland Matt entered into one of those well-known places of business with swinging doors, and shuffling up to the pewter-covered counter, asked for a pint of porter on trust. And went away wiping his mouth upon the back of his hand, of course? Nothing of the kind; for the landlord smiled pleasantly, shook his head, and declared that whenever he gave trust he lost a customer. So old Matt slinked away, and soon came to another swing-door, when, passing through, a far different odour saluted his nostrils--an odour commingled of steam, oil, treacle, glue, turpentine, stale breath, fresh paint, wet paper, and gas; where there was a continual noise of hissing, and rumbling of wheels, rattling of straps and bands, with a constant vibration of the great building, which heavily brooded over the reeking mass, as if hatching earthquakes. Up a staircase, whose walls shone with the marks of inky and oily hands, past dirty-faced boys in paper-caps and aprons, whose shirt-sleeves were rolled high above their elbows; past a window, a glance through which showed mighty engine and machine rushing off their work in never-tiring mode, wheels spinning, cylinders slowly revolving, with white sheets of paper running in, printed sheets running out, to be piled in stacks; here the portion of a magazine whose pages should rivet the attention of some fair reader; there the newspaper, to be spread in thousands through the length and breadth of the land; while again, close at hand, lumbered the heavy press to turn off by hand copies of the broad-margined, large-typed, thick-papered Chancery bill, whose legible words should nearly drive some weary disputant mad, although but a short time before its well-paid pages and open work had made glad the heart of a round-shouldered compositor--sower of the dragons' teeth of knowledge. Up still went old Matt Space--past boys bearing proof-sheets--boys who read copy in a sing-song, nasal, pointless twang to keen-eyed readers, ready to give angry stabs at ill-spelt words, to stick their pens through eyeless i's, and condemn the mutilated letters to the melting-pot; past pressmen toiling--down, Benjamin-Franklin-like, with heavy forms of type; up--up, till he reached the top story, where, beneath rows of skylights, men formed themselves into the hotbeds that generated disease, as they toiled on day after day at the cases of type, before a pair of which old Matt posted himself, took a pinch of snuff, and then prepared for work.