“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.”
Chapter Eighteen.
My Friend Jem Smith Makes Me Ambitious
I was receiving my first lessons in the fact that there is as much good-will as ill-will in the world – in other words, that there really is, as has been so poetically expressed, a silver lining to every cloud; and I gladly availed myself of Mr Hallett’s kind offer, following him to his frame, as they called the skeleton desks that supported the cases, and there sitting down close by him to partake of some bread and meat which he brought out carefully wrapped in a clean white napkin.
“Don’t be afraid, my boy,” he said, “make a good meal; and I should advise you, for the present, to bring your dinner with you and eat it here. Better than going into the streets.”
He then ate his own dinner quickly, and without taking the slightest notice of me beyond seeing once that I had a sufficiency of the bread and meat, but took out an oblong memorandum-book, and began busily drawing and making some calculation.
As he worked at this, I sat and had a good look at him, and could see that his large, massive head was covered with crisp dark hair that was already slightly sprinkled with grey. From time to time he raised his eyes from his book to look up, as if diving into the distance, or trying to catch some idea that was wandering away from him, and at such moments his deeply set eyes had a curiously intense look about them, while his forehead was deeply marked with thoughtful lines.
I don’t think he was more than thirty, but he looked, so to speak, vigorously old, or, rather, worn like some piece of steel that has been used hard, but has grown sharper and more elastic by that use. He was a tall, well-made man, but thin and spare, giving the idea of one who was ascetic in his habits and devoting himself to some particular end.
He did not speak to me again, and I was not sorry, for there was that in his face and ways that rather repelled than attracted, and I somehow felt that if he, in his quiet, firm way, were angry with me, I should be more alarmed than by the noisy bullying of Mr Grimstone, the overseer.
Two o’clock was signalled by the coming back of the compositors, who resumed their white aprons and rolled up their sleeves, when the sharp clicking noise went on as before. Mr Hallett, at the first entrance of one of his fellow-workmen, had shut his book with a snap, and thrust it into his breast, rolled up the napkin, and then, turning to me with a nod, —
“Two o’clock, my boy,” he said. “Get on with your work.”
As he spoke he resumed his own, and I went back to my case.
I had hardly been there ten seconds, and was diligently making sure which was the compartment containing the letter u, which had a terribly strong resemblance to the letter n, when Mr Grimstone suddenly pounced on me from round the end of the case. I say pounced, for it was so wonderfully like a cat coming upon a mouse. He seemed surprised and disappointed at finding me there, though I did not comprehend his looks then, and after staring hard for a moment or two, he went away.
The hours glided away, and I was so interested in what I was doing, that I hardly noticed the lapse of time, while, long before the afternoon was past, the work the men were engaged upon seemed so attractive that I felt impelled to imitate them by trying to pick up the letters forming various words, and then replacing them in the different boxes.
The first time it was rather difficult, but the second time I got on pretty well, and I was just beginning for the third time, when Mr Hallett came round my way and caught me in the act. I felt very guilty, but he seemed to approve, and walked away, to return directly with a little sliding steel thing, such as the men were using.
“Here’s a stick, my boy; try and place the letters, nick uppermost, in that.”
I took the stick, as he called it, and found that as fast as I placed a letter in, it seemed to do its best to jump out again; then one letter got upon another, or two or three appeared to quarrel and join in a regular squabble, so that their awkwardness and utter refusal to lie quietly side by side at last put me in a profuse perspiration.
I was busily fumbling about when Mr Grimstone, whose voice I had often heard scolding different men, came round, saw what I was doing, and snatched the composing-stick away.
“Tchah! What waste of time! Come along here,” he cried angrily, and I followed him to his glass office, where he sat down upon a worn stool. “Now then,” he said, sharply, “I’ve decided to give you a trial.”
I remember thinking that he was very stupid to assume that he had full authority, when I knew that he had not, but, of course, I was silent.
“And now mind this, sir: I am overseer here, and what I say I will have done, I have done. You hear?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“And now we understand one another.”
Saying this, he bounced down from his stool again, and led me to the end of the large room and through a door into a dirty place with a great leaden sink, water, and brushes, and a pot containing some liquid.
Jem Smith was there, having just brought in a long narrow tray containing a column of type.
“Here, Smith, show this boy how to wash a galley; and see that he does it well.”
Jem Smith grinned at me as soon as we were left alone, and I saw plainly enough that he meant to have some compensation for the box on the ear he had received; but I tried hard to contain myself, and meant to submit patiently to anything that might follow.
“Here, ketch hold o’ that galley,” he said sharply, “and look here, young man, don’t you get trying to play the sneak here, and begin getting old Hallett to take your part. He’s only a sneak, and everybody here hates him ’cause he won’t take his beer. You keep away from him, or it’ll be the worse for you. I’ve only got to tell the other boys, and they’ll make it so warm for you as you’ll wish as you’d never come here. Now, then, why don’t you ketch hold o’ that galley?”
“I don’t know what a galley is,” I said sturdily.
“Don’t know what a galley is,” he said, imitating my way of speaking; “you’re a pretty sort of fellow to come and get work at a printing-office. There, ketch holt, stoopid: that’s the galley; put it here, and you needn’t be so precious frightened of getting your fingers black. There’s the brush, dip it, and fetch all that ink off.”
I took the brush, dipped it in the liquor in the pot, and on brushing the surface of the type found that the strong solution easily brought off all the black ink; and I ended as instructed, by thoroughly rinsing the type and placing it to drain.
This done, I had to wash several more galleys, with the result that I was made tolerably black; and to make matters worse, my companion brought in a black roller of some soft material, and dabbed it against my cheek.
I plucked up my spirit and felt ready to strike out, but somehow I kept my anger down, and after washing the roller in turn, I was allowed to dry my hands and clean my face, which Jem Smith persuaded me to do with the strong solution of potash, making it tingle smartly; and, but for the rapid application of pure water, I believe the skin would have been made sore.
This seemed to afford the young ruffian intense delight, and taking up the brush, he dipped it in the potash and tried to brush my hair.
I retreated from him as far as I could, but he got between me and the door, and with the malignant pleasure felt by some boys in persecuting those who are weaker than themselves, he caught me by the collar.
“Just you call out, that’s all,” he said, “and I’ll half kill you. Hold still, you little sneak. You make so much noise as’ll reach outside, and I’ll jump on you.”
We were close beside the lead sink and the pot of solution-lye, as the printers call it; and now a new idea seemed to come into the spiteful young wretch’s mind, for, throwing down the brush, he seized hold of me with both hands, and as we struggled, being much the stronger, he got behind me, thrust his knee violently into my back, and brought me down kneeling before the great earthen pot. And now for the first time I saw what he intended to do, namely, to thrust my face and head into the black caustic solution, and, in spite of my resistance, he got it down lower and lower.
I might have shrieked out for help, and I might have cried for mercy; but, moved partly by his threats, partly by shame, I refrained, and made use of all my strength to escape, but in vain; strive as I would, he forced me down lower and lower, and then by one quick effort placed a hand on the back of my head and thrust it right into the filthy water.
Fortunately for me it was but a momentary affair, and the next instant he allowed me to struggle up and run blindly to the sink, where, perhaps, a little alarmed by his success, he filled a bowl with clean water, leaving the tap running, as I strove to sluice off the blinding, tingling fluid.
I was in the midst of this, and with soaked necktie and collar, kept on bathing my face and hair, when I heard Mr Grimstone’s voice at the door, and hastily thrust my fingers into my ears to clear them.
“What’s he doing?”
