PAUL EMBARKS ON ANOTHER VENTURE
"Do you know, Dad, the _March Hare_ is rapidly turning into an
elephant," announced Paul to his father one morning not long after the
conversation of the previous chapter. "I am having more and more copy to
prepare for Mr. Carter all the time, and am doing every bit of it by
hand. It takes hours to get it ready. I'm beginning to think I ought to
have a typewriter. How much does one cost? Have you any idea?"
"Typewriters come at all prices," his father answered. "What I should
advise you to get would be one of the small, light-weight machines. They
are far less expensive than the others and do excellent work."
"About how much would one cost?"
"Fifty or sixty dollars."
Paul gave a low whistle.
"That's all very well, sir," he laughed. "But where am I to get the
fifty or sixty bones to pay for it?"
"I don't know, my boy. That's up to you. Doesn't your business manager
provide you with a typewriter?"
"Not on your life!" replied Paul. "Much as ever I can wring enough money
out of him to cover my incidental expenses. No, the paper isn't fitting
up offices for its hard-working staff. If I get a typewriter it must be
my own venture."
"You would always find such a machine useful," returned his father
slowly. "It would not be money thrown away."
Paul glanced down thoughtfully.
"I've half a mind to save up and get one," he said suddenly. "I could
put my war-saving stamps into it," he added.
"So you could."
"I have nearly twenty-five dollars' worth of them already."
"Oh, that's fine! I had no idea you had been so thrifty." Mr. Cameron
looked pleased.
"We fellows have been racing each other up at school to see who could
get his book filled first. I'm afraid it was not all thrift," Paul
explained, meeting his father's eyes with honesty.
"The result, however, seems to be the same, whatever the motive," smiled
the man. "Twenty-five dollars would be a splendid start toward a
typewriter. You might possibly run across a second-hand machine that had
not been much used and so get it for less than the regular price. I
think, considering the cause is such a worthy one, I might donate ten
dollars to it."
"Really! Oh, I say, Dad, that would be grand. I'll pick you right up on
your offer."
"You may, son. I shan't pay over my ten dollars, though, until you have
the rest of the money."
"That's all straight; only don't forget about it."
"You needn't worry. I don't expect you will give me the chance to forget
even if I wanted to," replied his father teasingly.
"You bet I won't. I'm going right to work to get the rest of my cash as
fast as I can," responded Paul. "And I'm going to look up machines,
too."
"I can give you the names of one or two good makes," his father
suggested.
"I wish you would, Dad. You think one of the small machines you spoke of
would be good enough?"
"Certainly," assented Mr. Cameron. "Many persons who do a good deal of
work use the little machines from preference. They take up less room and
are lighter and more compact to carry about. In these days almost nobody
is without a typewriter, especially persons who write to any
considerable extent. Those who write for publication find a typewriter
practically imperative. Editors will not fuss to decipher hand-penned
copy. The time it takes and the strain on the eyes are too great. A
professional writer must now turn in his manuscript neatly typed and in
good form if he expects to have it meet with any attention. The old,
blotted, finely written and much marked-up article is a thing of the
past. Typewriters are so cheap in these days and so simply constructed
that there is no excuse for people not owning and running them."
"I wonder who thought out the typewriter, Dad," mused Paul.
"That is a much mooted question, my boy," Mr. Cameron answered. "There
is an old British record of a patent for some such device dated 1714,
but the specifications regarding it are very vague and unsatisfactory;
there also was an American patent taken out by William A. Burt as early
as 1829. Fire, however, destroyed this paper and we have no positive
data concerning it. Since then there have been over two thousand
different patents on the typewriter registered at the Government Office
at Washington,--so many of them that any person applying for a patent on
a new variety must have a great deal of courage."
"I should say so!"
"Generally speaking, all typewriters resolve themselves into two styles
of keyboard machine: in one the type bars strike the paper when the keys
are depressed; in the other the type is arranged around a wheel which
rotates in answer to the depressing of a keyboard letter, and prints
the corresponding type which is thereby brought opposite the printing
point. Either variety is good. It is a matter of preference. Possibly
the type-bar kind is the more common. There is, too, a difference in the
manner of inking the type. One machine inks the letters from an inked
ribbon that is drawn along by the action of the machine between the type
face and the paper; the type of the other machine is inked from an ink
pad that strikes the type before it is brought in contact with the
paper. Sometimes this ribbon or ink pad is black; sometimes blue, green,
red, or purple. Sometimes, too, a ribbon is so constructed that it inks
in two colors, which is frequently a convenience for business purposes.
Text, for example, can be done in black and the numerals--prices
perhaps--put in in red."
"I see. I should think that would be fine," said Paul. "Now tell me one
other thing: are the letters arranged in the same order on all
typewriters?"
"You mean the keyboards?"
"Yes, I guess that is what I mean," replied Paul.
"Keyboards sometimes differ in arrangement," Mr. Cameron explained.
"Some keyboards have a key for each letter, and others one key for
several characters. It is, however, desirable that machines should
differ as little in arrangement as possible, as typists learn a
universal method of letter-placing and are consequently annoyed to find
the letters in an unfamiliar location on a new machine."
"I can see that would upset them dreadfully," answered Paul. "Of course
they could not go so fast."
"Not only that, but they would make frequent mistakes," continued his
father. "The most expert typists seldom look at the keys, you know. They
memorize the position of the letters and then operate the machine by the
touch system, or by feeling. You have often seen a person play the piano
in the same fashion. It is a great advantage for a stenographer to be
able to do this, for he can keep his eyes on his copy and not constantly
change his eye-focus by glancing first at the manuscript and then at the
machine. He can also give his entire attention to taking dictation if he
so desires. The touch system is a great timesaver; it enables any one to
make twice the speed."
"And the bell warns them that they are approaching the end of a line,
even if they don't see that they are," Paul added.
"Precisely!"
"It is a great scheme, isn't it--a typewriter?" declared the boy.
Mr. Cameron nodded.
"What wouldn't the old monks have given for one?" went on Paul
mischievously. "Think of the years of work that would have saved them."
"Yes, that is true. But if we had no fine old illuminated manuscripts,
we would have lost much that is beautiful and interesting. There is no
question, though, that typewriters accord with our generation much more
harmoniously than do painfully penned manuscripts. In our day the
problem is to turn out the most work in the shortest time, and the
typewriter certainly does that for us. It is a very ingenious device--a
marvel until one sees a modern printing press; then the typewriter seems
a child's toy, a very elementary thing indeed."
"I'd like to see a big press sometime," Paul observed. "I have been
trying to get my nerve together to ask Mr. Carter for a permit to visit
the _Echo_ printing rooms."
"The _Echo_--humph!" laughed his father in derision. "Why, my boy, much
as we esteem the _Echo_ here in Burmingham, it is after all only a small
local newspaper and very insignificant when compared with one of the big
city dailies. You should visit the press rooms of a really large paper
if you want to see something worth seeing. The _Boston Post_, for
example, has the largest single printing press in the world. It was
built in 1906 by the Hoe Company of New York and is guaranteed to print,
count, fold, and stack into piles over 700,000 eight-page papers an
hour."
"Great Scott, Dad!"
"It is tremendous, isn't it?"
"I'd like to see it."
"Sometime you shall. I think such a trip could be arranged," his father
replied. "In the meantime I fancy you will have all you can do to earn
the money for your typewriter, purchase it, and learn to manipulate it."
"I guess I shall; that's right," agreed Paul. "How am I going to get
together the rest of that money! You haven't any suggestions, have you,
sir?"
"Not unless you want to do Thompson's work while he takes his trip West.
He is going out to Indiana to see his mother and will be away a month or
so; in the meantime I have got to hire another man to do the chores
about the place. The lawn must be cut; the leaves raked up; the driveway
kept trim and in order; and the hedge clipped. If you want to take the
job I will pay you for it."
"I'd have to do the work Saturdays, I suppose."
"That wouldn't hurt you, would it?"
Paul thought a moment.
"N--o."
"Undoubtedly it would interfere with your school games, the football and
baseball," said his father. "Maybe a typewriter isn't worth that amount
of sacrifice."
"Yes, it is."
"Think you want to make a try at Thompson's job?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then I won't hire in another man; only remember I shall expect you to
stick to the bargain. I can't have you throwing up the place in a week
or two."
"I shan't do that."
"And I can't have my work done haphazard, either," continued Mr.
Cameron. "It must be done well and regularly."
"Yes, sir."
"You want me to give you a trial?"
"Yes, Dad."
"Do you want to do the whole job--the brasses indoors too?"
"Yes, I may as well take on the whole thing since I am out for money,"
laughed Paul.
"That's right. You have the proper spirit--the spirit that buys
typewriters," answered his father. "I don't believe the exercise will
hurt you, and at the end of it you will have something more to show than
a dislocated shoulder, maybe, or a cracked cranium."
"Do you think I can earn what money I shall need to make up the rest of
my fifty dollars?" inquired Paul anxiously. "Can I do it in a month?"
"A month of work will give you the rest of your fifty, son; have no
fears. It will give you, too, all the work you will want for one
while," answered Mr. Cameron. "Unless I am greatly mistaken, you will be
quite ready to resign your post to Thompson when he comes back."
"Perhaps I shall," Paul replied, "but if you are repenting your bargain
and are trying to scare me off, Dad, it is too late. You have hired me
and I mean to stick it out."
"Go ahead, youngster, and good luck to you!" chuckled his father.