When you lay a fount of new type, don’t open the papers carefully, and
place the lines evenly with a brass rule in the cases, nick up; but show
your skill by tumbling over each package rapidly, and bringing it down
with a rush on the imposing-stone; then, roughly throwing the a’s into
a chaotic pile, grab them up by handfuls and work them well down in the
appropriate box. The harder you jostle them down, the more you will
get in. Proceed thus with each letter; and, if the operation has been
vigorously performed, the value of the fount will have been reduced, say
ten per cent.
2. While you set out one case, let your galley lie on the overheaped type
of another case.
3. If a line is rather too tight to permit the last letter to get in
easily, push it down hard with your rule or a quadrate. The type may be
injured; but why didn’t it fit in just right at first?
4. Empty your matter at a gentle inclination on the galley, and make it
up at the same angle. You can bring it right afterward—perhaps—by the
energetic application of mallet, shooting-stick, and planer.
5. When the case is half set out, shake up the type energetically, and do
so very often. The exercise will strengthen your muscles.
6. Don’t brush off the stone before you lay the matter down. If any sand
happens to get under, the type will show its impression beautifully deep
and clear on the face of the planer,—perhaps a whole word or two.
7. Don’t plane till the form is locked up, as thus you save the trouble
of the first planing. But, now that you do plane, hammer away, and show
your musical ability in playing a tattoo on the form. Don’t lay the
planer tenderly and lovingly on the types, as if you were afraid to hurt
their feelings, and gently tap it; but hold it off about a quarter or
three-eighths of an inch, and then bring down the mallet with a will.
Phew! how the planer will descend obedient to the stroke, and rebound
again, and perhaps again. If the form is not smooth on the surface now,
it is not your fault. Repeat this each time when the form is locked up,
till it goes to press; and you may depend on it the impression will gain
in boldness, if not in looks.
8. When correcting your numerous errors, don’t trouble yourself to lift
the lines carefully at the ends, but dig right into the head of the
erring letter, and, resting your bodkin on the type below it, pry up the
sinner: it does not matter if you demolish two or three types in the
under line.
9. Wash your form energetically, and apply the ley bountifully with a
good stiff wiry brush. Never mind rinsing: clean type is an old-fogy
notion.
10. When the type is out of use, let it lie around promiscuously,—on a
table, or board, or any place where it will be occasionally convenient
to lay on it a mallet or tin basin. If one strip of matter is placed on
another, room will be economized. Moreover, the under layers will be safe
from dust.
11 (comprehensively). Do every thing in a loose way generally, letting
matters go as they list, throwing your pi into spare boxes or secretly
placing it on the letter-table or some out-of-the-way place, stealing
sorts from your neighbour, overcharging time-work and extras, fishing for
fat takes, &c.
12. If you observe these things faithfully and constantly, and your
employer does not kick you out of his office, why—you do not get your
deserts.