"How do you know that?" said Hallett sharply, while my heart sank, for I felt that our attempt would be a failure. "Old Grim told me. That young scoundrel, Jem Smith, used to carry him scraps of paper upon which you had been drawing." Hallett's brow grew more cloudy, but he brightened up directly, saying frankly: "Well, yes, Mr Rowle, I am engaged upon a little invention." "That's right," said the old man warmly; "that's right; I wish I had begun something of the kind when I was young. It takes the mind away from the daily mill-horse work. But somehow, Hallett, I never could drag my mind away from it, but used to amuse myself reading proofs at home. Grace," he continued, turning to me, "why don't you take to something? You being an engineer, now, you ought to do something, say, in our line. There's plenty of chances there. I know one man," he said, taking up his thin leg and nursing it, "who has been trying for years to perfect a machine." "Oh, Mr Jabez," I thought, "you have spoiled all!" for Hallett darted a quick glance at me. "The idea occurred to him," continued Mr Jabez, tapping his snuff-box thoughtfully, as if it contained the machine, "that he could make a contrivance that would do away with the necessity for setting type." "Indeed?" said Hallett, who drew a long breath of relief. "Yes, sir," said Mr Jabez; "his idea was to get the type set up in long pipes above a keyboard, like a piano, and every time a key was touched with the finger, it pushed out a letter, which ran down an inclined plane to an opening, where a tiny hammer gave it a tap and drove it along a channel in which the letters formed one long line, which was afterwards made into pages and justified." "And did it answer?" said Hallett eagerly. "No," said the old man, taking a pinch of snuff, as Linny and I now listened to him attentively. "The idea was clever, but it was too crude. He set up his stick full, Antony Grace, and neglected to read it afterwards. He failed at first." "But you said it was a good idea, Mr Jabez," I exclaimed. "A capital idea," said the old man, "but it was full of faults." "Faults?" said Hallett dreamily. "Yes, sir," said the old man, growing animated. "For instance, he would only have been able to set one kind of type--one size. He couldn't use italic. He wanted a clever, sensible woman or man to work the keys, another to make the type up into lines. And he was obliged to have a boy to work the little hammer, or beater, to drive the letters along. Then the type would get stuck if the letters were not sent down exactly to the time; for two would meet in a lane, and then there was no end of confusion, and, after all, the type had to be distributed, and afterwards set up in sticks to fill the machine." "Exactly," said Hallett, with animation, for the ice was broken. "I had thought of something similar." "But you did not do it."