A pressman takes a "proof" after having rubbed the relief of the characters with ink, and on this proof are corrected the author's or compositor's faults by indications in the margin by understood signs. By this amended proof the compositor amends his faults one by one: leaves out superfluous characters, puts turned characters straight, spaces or draws closer the lines, etc. The corrections finished, the time has come to print. In the time of Geoffroy Tory this operation was made as we shall explain; it was the same before and the same after. Two pressmen have tempered with water the tympan, or more elastic part of the carriage, against which will be directed in good time the blow from the type; they have also damped the paper intended for the impression, so that it may retain the greasy ink with which the characters are charged; then the formes are washed before putting them under the press. In the figure which we reproduce, which dates from about 1530, we see the workshop of Jodocus Badius, of Asch, father-in-law of two celebrated printers, Vascosan and Robert Estienne. The press rolls--that is to say, the formes--have been placed in the "carriage," or movable chase, which, coming forward, receives the sheet of paper and the ink, and returns under the press to receive the blow of the "bar." In the room, lighted by two windows, the compositors work. In front one works at the bar, while his comrade distributes the ink on the "balls." These balls are leather pads, on which the greasy ink, made of lampblack and oil, is spread, to more easily rub the forme after each blow. Ordinarily the inker had two functions: he prepared the ink, distributed it, and kept his eye on the printed sheets to correct faults, blots, and difference of tint. Here the workman is simply occupied by the balls. Printed sheets and prepared paper are on a table by the side of the press. This press is composed of the rolling chase, the tympan, and the "frisket," a smaller tympan, which work against one another. The tympan, we have said above, receives directly the blow. And it was so for nearly four centuries; the mechanical means of our days have a little changed the work, but the principle is always the same. [Illustration: Fig. 103.--Mark of Jodocus Badius of Asch, representing the interior of a printing office about 1535. Engraving _à la croix de Lorraine_.] Towards the end of the sixteenth century, a press cost about a hundred and twenty-seven crowns, with its diverse utensils, as may be seen in an unpublished piece analysed by Dr. Giraudet, of Tours, in a very interesting pamphlet: _Une Association d'Imprimeurs et de Libraires de Paris Réfugiés à Tours au XVI^e Siècle_. The workshop of Jamet Métayer, of Tours, cost a rent of eighty-three crowns--about twenty pounds of current money.