are required, to see that the types are spelled out, one by one, into
the right words, and that the right words are rightly spelled. Now let a
college graduate apply for such a position. He knows Greek and Latin. He
can spell--or thinks he can. He can turn you out a sentence, which,
after going about so far, refers to what it is talking about, cuts a
pigeon-wing like the boys on the ice, tells a little tale between two
dashes, and one inside of that between two parentheses ("finger-nails,"
the printers call them), again refers to what it is talking about, and
closes up with three unaccented syllables following a heavy sound.
Sometimes folks hire this gentleman. The proof-slip is thrown in wet,
greatly to his horror, and after drying it he finds they are waiting for
it outside, and some other proof-reader is compelled to take it. Then
he learns he must read it wet, as it is. Pretty soon the foreman of the
printers brings in a proof-slip which is set in three sizes of type
where the gentleman discovered but one size. Then the foreman of the
proof-room has a discouraging way of taking the gentleman's proof and
marking from eight to ten glaring typographical errors which the
gentleman has overlooked, and eight or ten typographical absurdities,
which he has approved, and, horrors upon horrors! eight or ten errors of
"style." Now, for the first time, the gentleman has learned that every
time the word "President" appears in the newspaper it is either
capitalized or uncapitalized, while he had naturally supposed that it
took its chances, the way a picnic does!