The overseer and I stood in the dim light gazing at one another for a
few moments, during which I seemed to read in his sharp, harsh face an
air of resentment at my presence.
"Hallo!" he said, in an angry voice, and evidently rejoicing at having
encountered some one upon whom he could vent a little of the anger
seething within him. "What, are you here again, you young vagabond?
Didn't I tell you yesterday to go about your business? Be off with you,
or I'll send for a policeman. How dare you! What do you mean?"
"But please, sir," I remonstrated.
"Will you be off?" he roared; and I felt that I was about to be driven
from the place, when the proprietor's door was sharply opened and Mr
Lister appeared.
"Confound it all, Grimstone," he cried, "what's the matter now? Look
here, sir; I will not have this bullying and noise in the place."
"Your father never spoke to me like that, Mr John, when he was alive."
"My father put up with a great deal from you, Grimstone, because you
were an old and faithful servant of the firm; but that is no reason why
I, his son, should submit to what is sometimes bordering on insolence."
"Insolence, Mr John?"
"Yes, Grimstone, insolence."
"What _is_ the matter?" said Mr Ruddle, coming out.
"Mr John says I'm insolent, Mr Ruddle," said the overseer angrily;
"was I ever insolent to you, sir, or his father?"
"Well, if you want the truth, Grimstone, you often were very insolent,
only we put up with it for old acquaintance' sake. But what's the
matter now?"
"I was just speaking to this young vagabond, who persists in hanging
about the place, sir, when Mr John came out and attacked me, sir."
"Don't call names, Grimstone," said Mr Lister hotly. "This young
vagabond, as you call him, is a fresh boy whom Mr Ruddle has taken on,
and whom I desire you to treat kindly."
"Why didn't he speak, then," said the overseer angrily; "how was I to
know that he was engaged? In Mr Lister senior's time the engaging of
boys for the office was left to the overseer."
He stalked off, evidently in high dudgeon, leaving the masters gazing at
one another.
"He grows insufferable," said Mr Lister angrily. "One would think the
place belonged to him."
"Yes, he is rough," said Mr Ruddle; "but he's a good overseer, John,
and a faithful old servant. He was with us when we first began. Well,
my boy, you've come then; now go upstairs to the composing-room, and ask
Mr Grimstone to give you a job; he'll be a bit cross, I dare say, but
you must not mind that."
"No; sir; I'll try not."
"That's right," he said, giving me a friendly nod, and I hurried
upstairs and walked right through the composing-room to Mr Grimstone's
glass case.
He saw me coming, but, though I tapped softly at the door several times,
he refused to take any notice of me for some minutes, during which I had
to stand uncomfortably aware of the fact that I had given terrible
offence to this man in authority, by allowing myself to be engaged
downstairs after he had bade me go.
He was busy, pen in hand, looking over some long, narrow pieces of
paper, and kept on turning them over and over, making his spectacles
flash as he changed his position, and directing the top of his very
shiny bald head at me, till at last he raised it, gave a start, and
turned as if astonished at seeing me there; but it was poor pantomime
and badly done.
"Well, what is it?" he said.
"If you please, sir, Mr Lister sent me up to ask you to give me a job."
"Me give you a job," he said, in a menacing tone; "why, I thought you
would be hanger-on down below, and not come up into the office, where
you'd get your nice white hands dirtied. What job can I give you? What
can you do? What do you know? Here, Smith, take this boy, and give him
a page of pie to dis."
The big, fat-headed boy came up from a distant part of the room, scowled
at me, and led me to one of the desk-like frames, upon which were four
large open trays full of compartments of various sizes.
"Here you are!" he said, "lay holt;" and he thrust a little heavy square
paper packet into my hands. "It's burjoyce,"--so it sounded to me;
"look alive, and then come for another."
He went away, leaving me balancing the heavy packet in my hand. It was
about the size and thickness of a small book, but what next to do with
it, or how I was to do it, I, did not know.
Of course I know now that it was the petty, contemptible revenge of a
little-minded man to set me, a totally uninstructed novice, to do that
which an old practised compositor will shelve if he can, as an
uncongenial task. To "dis a page of burjoyce pie" was, in fact, to
distribute--that is, place in its proper compartments, or in the case--
every large and small letter, space and point, of a quantity of
_bourgeois_, or ordinary newspaper type, that had been accidentally
mixed, or "pied" as it is technically termed. The distribution of an
ordinary page or column of type is comparatively easy, for the skilled
workman reads it off word by word, and drops the letters dexterously in
the compartment assigned; but in "pie" the letters and spaces are all
jumbled, and the task is troublesome and slow.
There was I, then, with about as easy a task as if I had been suddenly
handed the various parts of a watch, and told to put them together; and
I felt helpless and ashamed, not daring to interrupt any of the busy men
intent upon their work at the various frames.
An hour must have elapsed before I felt that I dare venture to go
towards Mr Grimstone's glass case, and I was about desperately to tell
him that I was ignorant and helpless, and quite unfit to do what he had
set me, when the dark, stern-eyed man I had seen on the previous day
came round by where I stood.
He gazed at me curiously, and gave me a nod, and was passing on, when I
desperately exclaimed:
"If you please, sir--"
"Eh? What, is it, my boy?" he said.
"I was told, sir, to dis this pie," I said, fearful that I was making
some absurd blunder about the word _pie_.
"Well, why don't you do it? Get the sponge off the stone and give it a
good soaking in a galley."
"I'm very sorry, sir," I said, encouraged by his quiet, kind way, "but I
don't know how."
"Haven't you been in a printing-office before?"
"No, sir."
"And never distributed type?"
"No, sir."
"How absurd! Who set you to do it?"
"Mr Grimstone, sir."
"But does he know that you have never handled type?"
"Yes, sir."
"Ass?" he muttered. "Here, come along with me, my man. No; better not,
perhaps. Leave that packet alone, my boy. There, lay it down. Stand
here and try and learn the case."
"Learn the case, sir?" I said, with my heart sinking within me at being
given another impossible task.
"Yes, it's very easy; only wants time," he said kindly; "Here, pick up
one of these pieces of type," he continued, dexterously taking up a
little thin bit of black metal, "like this, and turn it in your fingers,
and see what letter is stamped on the end, and then put it back in the
same compartment of the case."
"Is that tray the case, sir?"
"Yes, quite right, go on. You can come and ask me anything you don't
know."
I darted a grateful look at him, and eagerly began my task, though in
fear and trembling, lest Mr Grimstone should come and find fault
because I had not "dis'd the pie."
Few people, I think, realise the sufferings of a sensitive boy at
school, or at his first launching into life, when set to some task
beyond his perception or powers. The dread of being considered stupid;
the fear of the task-masters, the strangeness, the uncongenial
surroundings, all combine to make up a state of mental torture that
produces illness; and yet it is often ridiculed, and the sufferer
treated with cruelty for non-performance of that which, simple to the
initiated, is to him in his ignorance an utter impossibility.
It was with a sense of relief I cannot describe that I began to lift the
metal types one by one, looked at them, and put them back; and I was not
long in finding out that, while the capital letters in the upper of the
two trays before me ran nearly regularly A, B, C, D, and so on, and
beneath them the figures 1, 2, 3, 4, etc, the lower case was a perfect
puzzle.
The compartments were not like those above, all small squares, and the
same size, but some were very large, and some very small; some were
long, and some were square; but I found that they were made upon a
regular plan. For instance, there was one very large compartment nearly
in the middle at the top of the lower tray, that was evidently six times
as big as the small compartments; while below and beside it were many
more that were four times as big as the small ones; others being only
twice as big.
I naturally examined the large compartment first, and found it full of
little thin slips of metal nearly an inch long, at the end of each of
which, and beautifully formed, was the letter _e_. There was no doubt
about it, and it was evident that there were more _e's_ than anything
else. Then under it I found the compartment full of _h's_, and away to
the left, _n's_ and _m's_; _t's_, _d's_, _u's_, _o's_, _a's_, and _r's_
were in other large compartments, and it gradually dawned upon my mind
that these letters were placed where they would be handiest for use, and
that there was the largest number of those that would be most frequently
required.
My surmise was quite right, and with this idea as the key, I soon found
out that little-used _x_ and _z_ were in very small numbers, in the most
out-of-the-way parts of the tray, just as were the double letters _ae_
and _oe_, etc. One compartment close under my hand, and very full,
puzzled me the most, for the pieces of metal therein were short, and had
no letters on the end; and at last, after trying in vain to understand
their meaning, I determined to ask the dark man next time he passed, and
went on trying to master my task with the strange clicking noise made by
the men going on all round.
I hardly dared glance about, but in the casual glimpses I stole, I began
to understand now that the men about me were picking up, letter by
letter, the types, to form words, and arranging them in little curiously
shaped tools they held in their hands.
I had been busily learning my letters for about half an hour, when the
big, fat-headed boy came up to me.
"Now then!" he said, in a bullying tone that was a very good imitation
of the overseer's, "done that page?"
"No!" I said.
"You ain't?"
"No; I did not know how."
"Oh, you'll catch it, just, when Mr Grimstone knows. You ain't coming
here to do just as you like; and I tell you what it is--"
"Well, what is it, boy?" said a quiet, stern voice, and my heart, gave a
joyful thump as I saw the dark man come up.
"Please, he ain't dis'd this here pie."
"No; he did not know how. I set him to learn the case."
"But Mr Grimstone said he was to--"
"Jem Smith, do you know you are a fool?" said the dark man quietly.
"I dessay I am, Mr Hallett, but Mr Grimstone said as this boy was
to--"
"And if you don't go about your business I shall box your ears."
"No, you--"
He did not finish his sentence, for there was something in the deep-set
dark eyes which had such an effect upon him that he sneaked off, and I
turned to my protector.
"Would you please tell me why these little things have no letters on
their ends, sir?" I said.
"Because they are spaces, my boy. Don't you remember in reading a book
there is a little distance between every word?"
"Yes, sir," I said eagerly; "and after a full stop there's a bigger
space."
"To be sure!" he said, smiling, and his pale face looked less stern and
severe. "Look: these little things, as you call them, but as we call
them, thick spaces, go between every word, and these square ones after a
full stop. How are you getting on?"
"I know that's _e_, sir."
"Yes; go on."
"And that's _h_, and that _o_, and
_u_--_m_--_a_--_r_--_i_--_s_--_o_--_n_--_t_," I said, touching the boxes
in turn.
"Good, very good," he said, "and what is that?"
"That, sir?--_d_."
"No, it is _p_. And that?"
"Oh, that is _b_."
"No, it is _q_. Now you know the meaning of mind your _p's_ and _q's_.
You must learn the difference, and try to recollect this; all the
letters, you see, are reversed, like a seal."
"Like the motto on papa's seal. Yes, I see, sir," I said eagerly.
"That's right, my boy," he said looking at me curiously. "Go on, I am
too busy to stay."
"Now! what's all this?" said Mr Grimstone, bustling up with Jem Smith.
"Please, sir," said the latter, "I telled him as he was to--"
"I found the boy unable to do what was set him, Mr Grimstone," said my
protector quietly, "and told him to go on with learning his case. The
boy has never been in an office before."
"That was for me to know, Mr Hallett," cried the overseer, growing red
in the face. "What the devil do you mean by--"
"Interfering, Mr Grimstone? I did it because I was sure you were too
good a manager to wish time to be wasted in this large office. And--I
must ask you, please when you speak to me, to omit these coarse
expressions."
"Of all the insolence--"
"Insolent or not, sir," said the dark man sternly, "have the goodness to
remember that I always treat you with respect, and I expect the same
from you. Excuse me, but a quarrel between us will not improve your
position with the men."
Mr Grimstone looked at him furiously; and turning redder in the face
than ever, seemed about to burst into a tirade of angry language, but my
protector met his look in a way that quelled him, and turning upon the
fat-headed boy, who was looking on open-mouthed, the overseer gave him a
sounding box on the ear.
"What are you standing gaping there for, you lazy young scoundrel?" he
roared; "go and wash those galleys, and do them well."
Then, striding off, he went into his glass case, while Jem Smith, in a
compartment at the end of an avenue of cases, began to brush some long
lengths of type, and whenever I glanced at him, he shook his fist, as he
showed his inflamed eyes red with crying and his face blackened by
contact with his dirty hands.
My protector, Mr Hallett, had left me at once, and I saw no more of him
for some time, as I worked away, sorry at having been the innocent means
of getting him into a quarrel. At last, just as I was very intent in
puzzling out the difference between _p's_ and _q's_ I started, for the
great lubberly boy came up close behind me.
"I'll give you a warming when you goes out to dinner, see if I don't,"
he whispered; but he shuffled off directly, as Mr Hallett came towards
me, saw that I was busy, and after giving me a friendly nod, went back,
leaving his calm, strangely stern face so impressed upon me, that I kept
finding myself thinking of him, his eyes seeming to stare at me from out
of every box.
But still I worked on, feeling each moment more and more sure of my way,
and at last in a fit of enterprise I set to work and managed to find the
letters forming my own name, and laid them side by side.
I felt no little nervous dread as dinner-time approached, for Jem
Smith's warming was in waiting; but as one o'clock struck, Mr Hallett
came up to me while the other men were hurrying off, and said kindly:
"Did that boy threaten you?"
"He--he said something, sir," I replied, hesitating.
"I thought so. He's gone now, so don't go out to dinner, my man. I can
give you a little of mine. I'll speak to him before you go to-night."