Chapter 14

PAUL MAKES A PILGRIMAGE TO THE CITY

The trip to Boston which Mr. Wright suggested materialized into quite as delightful an excursion as Paul had anticipated. In fact, it was an eventful journey, filled with every variety of wonderful experience.

The elder man and his young guest arrived in the city Friday night in plenty of time to enjoy what Paul called _a great feed_ and afterward go to a moving-picture show. It was odd to the suburban boy to awake Saturday morning amid the rumble and roar from pavements and crowded streets. But there was no leisure to gaze from the window down upon the hurrying throng beneath, for Mr. Wright was off early to keep a business engagement and during his absence Paul was to go to the circus. Accordingly the lad hurried his dressing and was ready to join his host for breakfast promptly at eight.

A league baseball game followed after lunch and with a morning and an afternoon so crammed with pleasure Paul would have felt amply repaid for the trip had no evening's entertainment followed. The evening, however, turned out to be the best part of the day; at least, when Paul tumbled into bed that night, wearied out by his many good times, he asserted that the crowning event of his holiday had given him more interesting things to think about.

It was not until nine o'clock Saturday evening that they could go to the newspaper office.

"Before that hour," explained Mr. Wright, "there will be very little for us to see. The compositors, of course, will previously have been busy setting type; but you can get an idea how that is done in a very short time. What I want you to see are the giant presses when they are running to their full capacity. To get out the Sunday edition of the paper the entire plant is in operation."

Therefore the two travelers loitered long at dinner and at nine o'clock presented themselves at the magic spot where they were to meet one of Mr. Wright's friends who was to show them through the various departments of the press plant.

When they reached this Eldorado, however, Paul was disappointed.

The manager's office seemed very quiet. A dim light burned and a few men moved in and out of the adjacent rooms. Now and then a telephone jangled, or a reporter, perched on the arm of a chair or on the corner of a desk, took out a yellow sheet of paper and ran his eye over its contents. But there was none of the bustle and rush that the lad had pictured. But before Paul had had time to become really downhearted, the door of an inner office opened and a man came forward to meet them.

"Ah, Wright, I'm glad to see you!" he called, extending his hand.

"I'm glad to see you too, Hawley. I expect we're making you a deal of trouble and that you wish us at the bottom of the Dead Sea."

"Not a bit of it!"

"That's mighty nice of you," laughed Mr. Wright. "I give you my word, I appreciate it. This is my young friend Paul Cameron, the editor-in-chief of the Burmingham _March Hare_."

If Mr. Hawley were ignorant of the _March Hare's_ existence or speculated at all as to what that unique publication might be, he at least gave no sign; instead he took Paul's hand, remarking gravely:

"I am glad to know you, Cameron," upon the receipt of which courtesy Cameron rose fully two inches in his boots and declared with equal fervor:

"I am glad to meet you too, Mr. Hawley."

To have seen them one would have thought they had been boon companions at press club dinners or associates in newspaper work all their days. "I'm going to take you upstairs first," Mr. Hawley said briskly. "We may as well begin at the beginning and show you how type is set. I don't know whether you have ever seen any type-making and typesetting machines or not."

"I haven't seen anything," Paul confessed frankly.

The newspaper man looked both amused and pleased.

"I'm rather glad of that," he remarked, "for it is much more interesting to explain a process to a person to whom it is entirely new. Formerly the method of setting type for the press was a tedious undertaking and one very hard on the eyes; but now this work is all done, or is largely done, by linotype machines that place in correct order the desired letters, grouping them into words and carefully spacing and punctuating them. The linotype operator has before him a keyboard and as he presses the keys in succession, the letter or character necessary drops into its proper place in the line that is being made up. These letters are then cast as they stand in a solid, one-line piece. With the lines thus made up, the compositors are relieved of a great proportion of their labor. Later I will show you how this is done.

"In the composing room there is also the monotype, another ingenious invention, which produces single letters and prepares them for casting. With two such machines you might suppose that the compositor would have little to do. Nevertheless, in spite of each of these labor-saving devices, there are always odd jobs to be done that cannot be performed by either of these agencies; there are short articles, the making up and designing of pages, advertisements, and a score of things outside the scope of either linotype or monotype."

Paul listened attentively.

"After the words have been formed and the lines cast by the linotype, the separate lines are arranged by the compositors inside a frame the exact size of the page of the paper to be printed. This frame or form as we call it, is divided into columns and after all the lines of type, the cuts, and advertisements to be used are arranged inside it, so that there is no waste space, a cast is made of the entire form and its contents. This cast is then fitted upon the rollers of the press, inked, and successive impressions made from it. This, in simple language, is what we are going to see and constitutes the printing of a paper."

Paul nodded.

"Of course," continued Mr. Hawley, "we shall see much more than that. We shall, for example, see how cuts and advertisements are made; photographs copied and the plates prepared for transfer to the paper; color sheets in process of making; in fact, all the varied departments of staff work. But what I have told you are the underlying principles of the project. I want you to understand them at the outset so that you will not become confused."

"I think I have it pretty straight," smiled Paul.

"Very well, then; we'll get to work."

"Not that I thoroughly understand how all this is done," added the boy quickly. "But I have the main idea and when I see the thing in operation I shall comprehend it more clearly, I am sure. You see, I don't really know much of anything about printing a paper. All I am actually sure of is that often the making up of a page is a big puzzle. I've had enough experience to find that out."

"That is sometimes a puzzle for us, too," smiled Mr. Hawley. "Fitting stuff into the available space is not always easy. Usually, however, we know just how many words can be allowed a given article and can make up our forms by estimating the mathematical measurement such copy will require. When the type is set in the forms, so accurately cut are the edges, and so closely do the lines fit together, the whole thing can be picked up and held upside down and not a piece of its mosaic fall out. That is no small stunt to accomplish. It means that every edge and corner of the metal type is absolutely true and exact. If it were not, the form would not lock up, or fit together. The letters, too, are all on the same level and the lines parallel. Geometrically, it is a perfect surface."

"Some picture puzzle!" Mr. Wright observed merrily.

"One better than a jigsaw puzzle," said Mr. Hawley. "Our pieces are smaller."

The three visitors stepped from the elevator and paused at the door of a crowded room, where many men were at work.

"These are the composing rooms," explained Mr. Hawley. "Here the copy sent us by reporters and editors is set up for the press. Along the walls you will see tiers of drawers in which type of various kinds and sizes is kept. The style or design of letter is called the 'face', and there are a great many sorts of faces, as you will notice by the labels on the drawers. There is Cheltenham, Ionic, Gothic--a multitude of others. There are, in addition, almost as many sizes of letters as there are faces, the letters running from large to a very small, or agate size which is used for footnotes."

He opened a drawer and Paul glanced inside it.

"But the letters do not seem to be arranged with any system at all," exclaimed the boy in surprise. "I don't see how the men can ever find what they want. I should think--"

He broke off, embarrassed.

"You should think what?" asked Mr. Hawley good-humoredly.

"Why, it just seems to me that if the letters were arranged in alphabetical order it would be a great deal easier to get them when one was in a hurry."

"It would seem so on the face of it," agreed Mr. Hawley, pleased by the lad's intelligence. "Printers, however, never arrange type that way. Instead, they put in the spot nearest at hand the letters they will use oftenest. It saves time. The men soon become accustomed to the position of these and can put their hands on them quickly and without the least trouble. The largest compartments in the drawers are given over to the letters most commonly in use, such as vowels and frequently recurring consonants. The letter Z you will notice has only a small space allowed it; X, too, is not much in demand."

"I see."

"Take one of these letters out and examine it."

Paul did so.

It was a thin bar of what appeared to be lead and was an inch long. On the end of it a single letter was cast.

"Besides these cases of letters, we have drawers of marks and signs arranged according to the same system, those most often in use being at the front of the drawer."

"It must have taken forever to hunt up the right letters and spell out the words before linotypes were invented," mused Paul.

"Yes, any amount of time was wasted that way," said Mr. Hawley. "The strain on the eyes was, too, something appalling. It is quite another matter to sit at a keyboard and with the pressure of a key assemble the proper matrices, as the type molds are called, and arrange in desired order correctly spaced and punctuated lines of type. Come over here and see how the work is done."

Crossing the floor, they stood before a machine where an operator was busy fingering a keyboard as if it were a typewriter. As he touched each key, it released a letter, and at the back of the machine Paul could see the silvery gleam as the miniature bar of metal dropped down and slipped into its place in the lengthening series of words. As soon as the row increased to line length, it moved along and a new line of words was assembled. The process was fascinating and the boy watched it spellbound.

"That's corking!" he at last burst out.

"It is a marvelous invention, certainly," responded Mr. Hawley, delighted by the enthusiasm of the _March Hare's_ editor.

"What metal is used for casting type?" inquired Paul suddenly. "It looks like lead."

"It is not pure lead," Mr. Hawley answered. "That metal has been found to be much too soft; it soon wears down and loses its outline and its sharp edges. So an alloy of antimony is mixed with the lead and a composition is made that is harder and more durable."

"It must be quite a stunt to get the mixture just right," remarked Paul.

Again the newspaper man smiled with pleasure. It was a satisfaction to have so intelligent an audience.

"You have put your finger on a very important feature of the newspaper business," he rejoined. "The man who prepares the metal solution and keeps it at just the proper degree of temperature for casting is the person to whom the printer owes no small measure of his success. When we go downstairs, we shall see how the forms that are set here are cast in two large metal sections that fit on the two halves of the cylindrical rollers of the press. A mold of the form is first made from a peculiar kind of cardboard, a sort of _papier-mache_, and by forcing hot metal into this mold a cast, or stereotype, of the page is taken. It is from this metal stereotype that the paper is printed. After the two sections are fastened securely upon the cylinders and inked by machinery, the great webs of paper at either end of the press unroll, and as they move over the rapidly turning wheels, your daily newspaper is printed for you."

"Are we going to see it done?" asked Paul eagerly.

"We certainly are," said Mr. Hawley, leading the way toward the elevator.

"Of course the compositors have to be very sure before the forms go to the stereotype casting room that there are no mistakes in them, I suppose," Paul ventured thoughtfully.

"Yes. There is no correcting the stereotype after it is once made," replied Mr. Hawley. "Everything is corrected and any exchange of letters made before it is cast. Men who handle type constantly become very expert in detecting errors, many compositors being able to read type upside down, or in reversed order, as easily as you can read a straightforward line of printed matter."

Mr. Hawley paused.

"In addition to this department," he presently continued, "is the room where the plates for the color section of the paper are prepared. After the drawing for the pictures is made, it is outlined on a block of metal and afterward cut out, so that the design remains in relief; then the impression is taken with colored inks, a separate printing being made for each color in turn, except where the colors are permitted to fuse before they dry in order to produce a secondary tone. You doubtless have seen the lithograph process and know how the first printing colors all the parts of the picture that are red, for example; the next impression prints the blue parts; and the third those that are green."

"Yes, I've seen posters printed."

"Then you know how the work is done."

"And it is for printing this colored supplement that the color-decks at each end of the big press are used?"

"Precisely. We often run these colored sections of the Sunday edition off some weeks in advance, as they are independent parts of the paper and need not necessarily be turned out at the last moment as the news sections must."

"I see."

"We also have our designing rooms for the drawing of fashion pictures, and the illustrations to accompany advertisements. All that is a department in itself, and a most interesting branch of the work. These cuts are prepared on sheets of metal and are cast and printed as the rest of the paper is; they are set into the forms and stereotyped by the same method as the printed matter. When we want reproductions from photographs we have a photo-engraving department where by means of a very powerful electric light we can reproduce pictures of all sorts; pen-drawings, facsimiles of old prints, photographs, and every variety of picture imaginable. These are developed on a sheet of metal instead of on a glass plate and then reproduced."

"That is the way you get the fine picture sheets that you enjoy so much, Paul," put in Mr. Wright.

"The photo-engraving took the place of the woodcut," Mr. Hawley explained. "The process has been constantly improved until now we are able to get wonderfully artistic results."

"I had no idea there were so many different departments required to get out a paper," remarked Paul slowly. "It is an awful piece of work, isn't it?"

Their guide laughed.

"It is quite a project," he answered. "Of course, much of it becomes routine, and we think nothing about it. But I am sure that few persons who read the papers realize the great amount of time and thought that goes into turning out a good, up-to-date, artistically illustrated newspaper. The mere mechanical toil required is enormous; and in addition to this labor there is all the bustle, rush, and rivalry attending the securing of the latest news. The editorial office has its set of problems, as you know, if you yourself get out a paper."

"I've been so absorbed in the machinery that I forgot the editorial end of it for a moment," Paul said.

"Don't forget it, for it is the backbone of the business," replied Mr. Hawley. "All that part of our work is conducted as systematically as the rest. Each editorial writer and reporter is detailed to his particular work and must have his copy in promptly; he must know his facts and write them up with accuracy, charm, and spirit, the articles must also have the punch that will carry them and make people interested in reading them. A writer who can't turn out this sort of stuff has no place in the newspaper world. Every article that comes in is either used, returned, or filed away and catalogued for future reference; we call the room where the envelopes containing such matter are stacked the graveyard. Every newspaper has its graveyard. Into it goes stuff that has perhaps been paid for and never printed; clippings that can be used for reference; every sort of material. We can put our hand on any article filed, at a moment's notice. Come in and see for yourself the great tiers of shelves with the contents of each shelf classified and marked."

Paul followed him.

There indeed was the room, its shelves reaching to its ceiling and as neatly and completely arranged as they would be in a library. Sections were given over to business interests; to well-known men and women; to accidents; to shipping; to material of every description.

The visitors could not, however, delay to investigate this department, fascinating as it was. They were hurried on to another floor and were shown where all the accounts of advertisers were computed by means of an automatic device that registered the space taken by a specific firm and the price of such space. There was also a circulation department where lists of subscribers and records of their subscriptions were filed and billed.

Such ingenious contrivances were new to the village boy and his eyes widened. "I think we ought to pay more for our papers," he gasped. "I had no idea that publishing a newspaper meant so much work. I don't think we pay half enough money for all this trouble."

Mr. Hawley smiled.

"Sometimes I don't think we do either," he said.

"This is such a tremendous plant!" the boy went on breathlessly.

"Our paper is more of an undertaking, then, than your _March Hare_."

"Well, rather!" chuckled Paul. "I thought we had quite a proposition until I saw all this. Now the mere writing of copy seems like nothing at all. What a job it is to print the stuff after you get it!"

"They say there is no better way to become cheered up than to take a peep at some other fellow's tribulations," Mr. Hawley declared. "Now suppose you go down to the press room and see some of ours at first hand."

He led the way to an elevator that dropped them quickly to the basement of the building.

"Do they always put the presses downstairs?" asked Paul.

"Practically always, yes," replied Mr. Hawley. "It is necessary to do so because of the immense weight of the presses. The problems of the vibration of machinery and the support of its weight always govern all factory construction and the building of plants of a similar nature. Most newspaper presses are therefore placed on solid ground, or as near it as possible, in order to minimize the difficulties arising from these two conditions. Some years ago, however, the _Boston Post_ ventured an innovation by arranging its presses one over the other, three in a tier; and as the experiment has proved a success, many other large newspapers in various parts of the country have followed their example."

"If floor space can be economized it must be a great saving to newspaper plants whose buildings are in the heart of a city; real estate is no small item of expense," observed Mr. Wright.

"Precisely," agreed Mr. Hawley. "Yet high as were rentals and taxes, no one had had the courage to try a press constructed on another plan. It meant, of course, a new set of difficulties to solve. I happen to know, for instance, that when the floor for the sub-basement of the _Post_ was constructed, the beams were set close enough together to support a weight of four hundred pounds to each square foot of space. This was not entirely necessary but it was done as a precaution against accident. Sometimes the mammoth rolls of paper fed into the presses fall when being hoisted into place and drop with a crash. If the floor were not strong the whole fifteen hundred pounds might go through and carry everything with it. The builders wished to be prepared for an emergency of this sort."

"They were wise."

"They could take no chances," said Mr. Hawley gravely. "The cellars, you see, run five stories below ground. They had to dig down, down, down to get the room they needed. The disadvantage of this is that all materials and all the printed papers as well have to be hoisted to and from the ground floor, and air and water must be pumped from the street level. Nevertheless, that this can be done has been proved. The questions of heating and ventilation are the most serious ones, for in the press rooms the thermometer cannot be permitted to vary more than a few degrees, either in winter or summer; any marked difference in temperature instantly affects the flow of the ink, causing no end of trouble. For that reason we have fans and all sorts of mechanical contrivances to keep the rooms at the desired heat."

"I should think you had conquered almost every imaginable difficulty," Mr. Wright remarked.

"Pretty nearly," returned Mr. Hawley good-naturedly.

They had now reached the lowest floor and the press rooms were a whir of noise and clatter. As the three entered, the hum of the machinery rendered further speech impossible.

Paul gazed up at the presses that towered high above his head.

There was the mighty machine and there were the hurrying workers, walking about it; some stood on the cement floor, and others moved here and there along the small swinging platforms that circled the upper part of the leviathan. In mid-air, held by mighty chains, hung the rolls of blank paper that were soon to be transformed into newspapers. As the vast spools of unprinted material were reeled off, the ribbons of whiteness passed like a spider's web in and out the turning wheels, and as they moved over the inked cylinders that printed them on both sides, the happenings of the world were recorded with lightning speed. In the meantime into the racks below were constantly dropping papers neatly folded,--papers that were finished and had each section arranged in its proper place; and to Paul's amazement an automatic machine counted these as they came from the press.

Whenever a certain number of papers were counted out a man came forward, hoisted the lot to his shoulder and disappeared into the elevator with it; or handed it to some one whose it duty it was to load it on to a truck, carry it upstairs, and put it into one of the myriad wagons that waited at the curb for its load. As fast as these wagons were filled they dashed off, bearing the Sunday editions to railway stations for shipping, or to distributing centers throughout the city; others had wrappers put on them and were dispatched to the mailing department to be addressed and forwarded to patrons who lived out of town.

"Some business, eh, Paul?" said Mr. Wright.

"You bet it is!"

"About one third of all the wood-pulp paper produced in America goes into newspapers and periodicals," Mr. Hawley managed to shout above the uproar of the whirling wheels. "That is where so many of our spruce, poplar, and hemlock trees go. Telephone books, telephone blanks, transfers for electric cars, city directories, play bills, consume a lot of paper; then in addition to the papers printed in English there are in America papers printed in fifty different foreign languages."

"I don't wonder there was a shortage of paper during the war," stammered Paul.

"It hit us pretty close," Mr. Hawley owned. "Our Sunday editions had to be curtailed a good deal, and many of the monthly publications were put out of business entirely by the high cost of paper. The monthly magazine is, you know, a great seller in rural communities. A newspaper is usually a local affair; but the monthly circulates all over the country and is not by any means confined to the district in which it is published."

"It makes a nice lot of work for the Post Office Department," put in Mr. Wright jestingly.

"Yes, it does," agreed Mr. Hawley.

"I suppose book publishing and music publishing take more paper," mused Paul.

"Yes. The printing of music is an expensive and fussy piece of work, too. It must be accurately done, and done by men who are experienced in that special kind of work. One misprint will cause a discord and throw the music out of sale. Of course if a song turns out to be popular, a small fortune is often reaped from it; but if it is not, the cost of getting it out is so great that little is netted by the publishers."

They moved on into another room where it was more quiet, leaving the hum of the presses behind them.

"This," explained Mr. Hawley, "is the stereotype-casting room of which I told you. It is here that the _papier-mache_ forms made from the forms you saw in linotype are brought and cast in solid pieces for the presses. Let us watch the process. You can see how they fasten the paper impression around this mold so that the cast of it can be taken. The hot metal is run in, and pressed into every depression of the cardboard. The thickness of these semi-cylindrical casts is carefully specified and over there is a machine that pares off or smooths away all superfluous material so that they come out exactly the proper thickness; otherwise they would not fit the rollers of the press."

Paul watched. Sure enough! After being cast, the sections of stereotype were put into the machine indicated and moved quickly along, being planed off as they went; when they emerged the wrong side of them was smooth and even.

"This kettle or tank of hot metal," went on Mr. Hawley, pointing to a vat of seething composition, "has to be kept, as I explained to you, at a specified degree of heat if we are to get successful stereotypes of our forms. Therefore a great deal depends on the skill and judgment of the man who prepares and melts down the mixture bubbling in that kettle. Without his brain and experience there could be no newspapers."

As he spoke Mr. Hawley waved a salutation to the workman in blue overalls who was studying the indicator beside the furnace.

"That indicator tells the exact temperature of the melted solution in the kettle; also the temperature of the furnace. There can be no variation in heat without hindering the work of casting, and perhaps wrecking the casts and wasting a quantity of material. So on that little chap over there by the fire hangs our fate."

The workman heard the words and smiled, and Paul smiled in return.

"Do they make stereotypes for circular rollers and print books this same way?" he asked.

"No. Most books are electrotyped, the machinery being much less complex than is the newspaper press. A rotary press cannot do such fine or accurate work."

For a moment they lingered, watching the busy scene with its shifting figures. Then they stepped into the elevator and were shot up to the street level. The hands of the clock stood at eleven when at last they emerged upon the sidewalk.

Paul sighed.

"Tired?"

"Rather, sir; aren't you?"

"Well, I just feel as if I had played sixteen holes of golf," Mr. Wright replied. They laughed together.

"But, Jove! It was worth it though, wasn't it?" cried Paul.

"I think so."

"I, too! Only," added the boy, "I still believe we ought to pay more for our newspapers."