Tall stands held tier after tier of type-cases, slid in like drawers.
The tops were slanted. On them stood other cases, their queerly arranged
and various-sized compartments exposed to view. Down the centre of the
room ran a long table. One end of it was heaped with printed matter in
piles and in packages, the other was topped with smooth stone on which
rested forms made up. Shelves filled with stationery, cans and the like
ran down one side the room. Beyond the table were two presses, a big and
a little. In one corner stood a table with a gas jet over it. In another
was an open sink with running water. A thin man in dirty shirt-sleeves
was setting type from one of the cases. Another, shorter man at the
stone-topped table was tapping lightly with a mallet on a piece of wood
which he moved here and there over a form. A boy of fifteen was printing
at the smaller of the presses. A huge figure was sprawled over the table
in the corner. In the air hung the delicious smell of printer's ink and
the clank and chug of the press.
Bobby stood in the doorway some time. Finally the boy said something to
the 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 a
consumptive tendency. His massive bony shoulders hung forward; his head
was carried in advance. In character this head was like that of a Jove
condemned through centuries to long hours in a dark, unwholesome
atmosphere--the grand, square, bony structure, the thick, upstanding
hair, the bushy, steady eyebrows, the heavy beard. But the cheeks
beneath the beard were sunken; the eyes in the square-cut caverns were
kind and gentle--and very weary.
"I want to see if I can get some ink of you," requested Bobby, holding
out his little tin box.
Mr. Daggett took the box without replying; and, opening it, tested with
his 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 a
bucket. Bobby gasped.
"My!" he cried; "will you ever use all that?"
Mr. Daggett nodded, and, dipping a broad-bladed knife, brought up, on
merely 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 massive
head. "Please," ventured Bobby, hesitating, "please, would you mind if I
stay 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 he
looked up. Bobby was still there standing in the middle of the floor,
staring with all his might. Mr. Daggett pulled together his great frame
and 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?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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