Paul and the Printing Press Part 14

CHAPTER IX

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," a.s.sented 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 n.o.body 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 ma.n.u.script 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 Was.h.i.+ngton,--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 fas.h.i.+on. 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 ma.n.u.script 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 ma.n.u.scripts, 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 ma.n.u.scripts. 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."