Dick Hamilton's Fortune; Or, The Stirring Doings of a Millionaire's Son — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Dick Hamilton's Fortune; Or, The Stirring Doings of a Millionaire's Son
John Stuart Mill · en
"Well, if they come here and ask about it, I can't say it wasn't so."
"No, I suppose not," assented Larry. "But, I tell you what you can do."
"What?"
"Go for a walk, and don't come back to the hotel until after my paper is
out with the story. We publish in the afternoon and go to press about
noon for the first edition. Would it be asking too much of you to do
that?"
"No, for we were going out anyhow."
"Then come with me," suggested Larry. "I'll take you to the _Leader_
office and have a man show you how we make a newspaper. I guess no other
reporters will come in there to get the story out of you," and he
laughed in delight at the "beat" he had secured.
Dick and his friends were only too glad to get a chance to see a big
paper printed, and soon they were on their way to the _Leader_ office,
escorted by Larry.
"If any other reporters see me they'll think I'm taking some young men's
club on a tour of the city," the young journalist remarked, as the
little throng walked along. "Well, if they do, it will be a good way to
throw them off the scent."
Larry reported to his city editor about having most unexpectedly come
across a "big" story in connection with the young millionaire, and was
told to "let it run for all it's worth."
"I'll see to it that the modern Croesus and his friends are
entertained," said Mr. Newton, another reporter, who was told by Mr.
Emberg, the city editor, to show Dick and his chums around the newspaper
plant.
It was getting close to edition time, and they noticed, with much
amazement, how the reporters came hurrying in with the news they had
gathered; how they sat down at typewriters and rattled it off; how it
was corrected and edited; sent to the composing room in pneumatic tubes;
set up on type-setting machines that seemed almost human; the type put
into "forms" or strong steel frames; how a soft sheet of wet paper was
pressed on the type and baked by steam until it took every impression
and was the exact counterpart of a printed page.
The boys watched and saw that these baked sheets of paper, called
"matrices," were sent to the stereotyping room, where, bent into a
half-circle in a machine, they were filled with hot melted lead, which,
hardening, took every impression of the cardboard.
Then the curved metal plates, each one representing a page of the paper,
were clamped on a big press, that worked with a noise like thunder, and,
in an instant, it seemed, white paper from a big roll, which was fed it
at one end, came out printed, pasted, and folded newspapers at the other
end of the machine.
A grimy boy gathered up an armful of them, as they kept piling up at the
foot of a chute, which extended somewhere up inside the press. Mr.
Newton, who had escorted Dick and his friends about, took up one of the
journals.
"There you are!" he shouted, above the rumble and roar of the press, as
he handed Dick a paper.