'There are seventy thousand orthodox Jews in London alone,' said De
Haan with rotund enunciation. 'So you see what you may have to print.
It'll be worth your while to do it extra cheap.'
Gluck agreed readily, naming a low figure. After half an hour's
discussion it was reduced by ten per cent.
'Good-bye, then,' said De Haan. 'So let it stand. We shall start with
a thousand copies of the first number, but where we shall end, the
Holy One--blessed be He!--alone knows. I will now leave you and the
editor to talk over the rest. To-day's Monday. We must have the first
number out by Friday week. Can you do that, Mr. Leon?'
'Oh, that will be ample,' said Raphael, shooting out his arms.
He did not remain of that opinion. Never had he gone through such an
awful, anxious time, not even in his preparations for the stiffest
exams. He worked sixteen hours a day at the paper. The only evening he
allowed himself off was when he dined with Mrs. Henry Goldsmith and
met Esther. First numbers invariably take twice as long to produce as
second numbers, even in the best regulated establishments. All sorts
of mysterious sticks and leads and founts and formes are found wanting
at the eleventh hour. As a substitute for grey hair-dye, there is
nothing in the market to compete with the production of first numbers.
But in Gluck's establishment these difficulties were multiplied by a
hundred. Gluck spent a great deal of time in going round the corner to
get something from a brother printer. It took enormous time to get a
proof of any article out of Gluck.
'My men are so careful,' Gluck explained. 'They don't like to pass
anything till it's free from typos.'
The men must have been highly disappointed, for the proofs were
invariably returned bristling with corrections and having a highly
hieroglyphic appearance. Then Gluck would go in and slang his men. He
kept them behind the partition painted 'Private.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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