Part 2

Arturius indulged in some choice blasphemy with its direction divided equally between High-Pockets and No. 7. High-Pockets felt sorry for Arturius. He went to the locker room and determined to his satisfaction that the pint was still dead, then he came back. The boy had left some proofs on his machine. High-Pockets picked them up to scan them. Then he swore vigorously. "Proofreaders!" he sputtered. "Comma chasers! Look at this!" he invited the world. "Put a hyphen in the word _good-will_. Marked a double _e_ in _employe_. Changed _thous-and_ to _thou-sand_!" He clenched his fists and raised them far above his head. "Give me strength!" he groaned. "Give me strength! On top of everything else, the proofreaders have to go nuts too."

He started for the proof room, clutching the proofs in one hand. His long arms swung as he weaved among the lights. He went in the door of the proof room and stood there a moment. His head was above the lights and for a moment he couldn't see very clearly, but he demanded in his booming voice: "Who signed these proofs 'R. M. S.'?"

There was a stir in the proofroom, and then a man at the far end of the table got to his feet. "I did," he said in thunderous voice.

High-Pockets didn't back down. "What the hell do you think this is--1910?" he demanded, waving the proofs. "This is a newspaper, isn't it, not a dictionary?"

"Is it indeed?" said the man ominously, and High-Pockets thought he had heard that voice before. He stared toward the man and his eyes began to focus and then he saw who it was. A gulp started in High-Pockets' adam's-apple and traveled visibly down the full length of his body to the floor. He opened his mouth but no sound came out. His eyes became glazed like those of a man walking in his sleep.

"Your honor," he said, at last, struggling to force words from his larynx and looking like a man in a very blue funk, "there are extenuating circumstances."

Then he seemed to awaken. He looked around him. Through the glass windows of the proof room he saw a makeup man pushing a turtle to the stereotype room, and this seemed to give him a little grip on reality. He turned back with a certain air of assurance, as if he was about to take things decisively into his own hands. But he looked into His Honor's stern countenance and that assurance wilted visibly. High-Pockets retreated in confusion.

Maybe No. 7 sympathized with him. At least she allowed him to correct the proofs without any trouble. High-Pockets even began to feel that there was some feeling of friendliness flowing between them.

He was working on his next take when he felt a presence behind him. He revolved in his chair, and he very nearly fell over when he once again faced His Honor, the Judge. His Honor had a long piece of pasted copy in one hand and was waving a proof in the other. "So," His Honor said malevolently, "you're the poet."

"What are you talking about?"

"This." His Honor waved the proof under High-Pockets' nose. "You set this verse. It isn't in the copy at all."

High-Pockets felt uneasy. "Let's see." He read aloud:

"'Tis dawn in the woods. A gentleman slumbers Beneath the protection of wild cucumbers. The woodpeckers woodpeck, the rattlesnakes rattle, And all the cockroaches prepare to do battle."

* * * * *

High-Pockets gulped. He handed the proof back to His Honor: he revolved again and folded himself into the chair. He started to set type. Then he remembered. "Your Honor," he said, "I had nothing to do with it. No. 7 did it."

His Honor, goaded by High-Pockets' temporary amnesia which looked very much like disrespect, exploded. "A machine! A machine did this?"

High-Pockets sent in the line and started another.

"Are you imputing intelligence to a machine?" His Honor demanded, and No. 7 seemed to hesitate for an instant. "No machine on earth could compose such awful poetry as this," His Honor thundered.

No. 7 was casting. For no reason at all the plunger stuck in the bottom of the well and No. 7's clutch chattered and shook the entire machine before High-Pockets shut off the power. High-Pockets revolved and looked at the judge and raised his eyebrows, then rang the bell.

This time the machinist was entirely speechless. High-Pockets pointed to the plunger. Arturius worked on it but couldn't get it loose. He got a Crescent wrench. "Get hold of the first-elevator cam," he said, "and back her up while I twist the plunger."

His Honor stood by, waiting to take up the battle with High-Pockets.

High-Pockets got hold of the cam with a sardonic set to his lips. He yanked hard. No. 7 would find out who was boss.

But when he pulled, the screw holding the end of the second elevator starting spring came loose and the spring shot the screw into High-Pockets' ribs with the force of a bullet. High-Pockets merely grunted.

"Wait, I'll take the drive clutch," Arturius said, as if he was beginning to be concerned.

High-Pockets shut off the power, and Arturius took hold of the clutch, one hand on each end, and turned forward.

The plunger started to lift. It came halfway up, and then the machine suddenly rolled backward again, with the heavy plunger spring helping it. The clutch spun like a top.

Arturius backed away holding the fingers of one hand.

"Get hurt?"

Arturius bit his lip. "No," he said, "but pull that plunger pin before I try it again."

High-Pockets pulled the pin, and Arturius got No. 7 off the cast. Then he went around to the front, took the controlling lever, and started to pull it out to finish the machine's revolution.

He saw a loose mat on the vise and reached for it with his left hand. At that instant his hand slipped off the controlling lever, and the first elevator head came down with a crash.

But Arturius' fingers were not there. He backed off and did the most thoroughly human thing he'd done in years. He thumbed his nose at No. 7. The judge looked skeptical.

"Look out!" High-Pockets yelled. "She's backing!"

His long arms moved with astonishing speed. He practically snatched the judge up from the place where he stood and set him down again two feet away. And just in time, for a stream of silvery, molten metal rose in a wide arc from the vise-jaws of No. 7 and came down exactly where His Honor's bald head had been. About three pounds of it descended to the floor and lay there hardening and smoking like an over-done pancake.

Sweat popped out on the judge's bald head. His Honor's eyes were bulging. "She squirted hot lead at me!" he said accusingly. "Maliciously and with malice aforethought." He pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his bald head. His hands were steady. "If that lead had fallen on me," he said plaintively, "it would have baked my skull. Why did she try to do that to me?"

"You made fun of her poetry," High-Pockets pointed out. With a certain amount of pleasure he reflected that His Honor could hardly allege contempt, under the circumstances.

But his honor looked at High-Pockets with a new light in his eyes. "You may have saved my life," he said thoughtfully.

Arturius Wickware looked desperate. "It can't squirt," he said. "The plunger pin isn't in."

High-Pockets pointed to the metal on the floor. "It did," he said.

* * * * *

Arturius looked at No. 7 dourly and shut off the motor. "Please take No. 8," he begged High-Pockets. It was the first time he had said "please" in thirty years.

High-Pockets was staring at the proof like a man in a trance.

Suddenly he made half a dozen long strides to the machinist's bench. He laid hands on a twelve-pound sledge-hammer. He came back with it over his shoulder, and before the horrified Arturius could utter a word, High-Pockets had gone to the rear of No. 7 and swung the sledge in one devastating left-handed blow that sheared through the ninth and tenth cams. Then he stepped to the right and crashed the hammer down on the pot-pump cam.

He stepped back, breathing hard, the hammer over his shoulder. Pieces of cast iron tinkled to the floor. "Well," boomed High-Pockets, "I guess I fixed it, didn't I?"

There was no answer. High-Pockets looked around. Arturius had quietly fainted. The judge looked horrified.

They revived Arturius by the simple expedient of putting a screwdriver in his big hand. He opened his eyes and stared at High-Pockets and shook his head slowly, incredulously.

High-Pockets helped him up. "Don't worry," he said.

Arturius sputtered and almost detonated. "Don't worry!" he snorted. "Five hundred dollars worth of cams busted up and he says, 'Don't worry!'"

"It won't cost that much," said High-Pockets. "I'll help you piece the cams together. You can get them welded."

"No," said Arturius. "I'll get new ones."

"It won't work," said High-Pockets.

"What won't work?"

"I did that to chastise the machine. If it wants to be so independent, it will have to endure the penalties as well as enjoy the privileges. If you put in new cams, it will think it's smart and go right ahead raising hell. But if you have the old ones welded and put back in, the welds, like scars, will remind No. 7 that she's supposed to be a lady. As long as they are there, No. 7 will behave. I guarantee it."

The judge wiped his bald head again. "I do believe you've got something there, Mr. Jones. If a machine assumes the right of self-determination, what would be more natural than to treat it as you would treat any other self-determining creature?"

High-Pockets heaved a tremendous sigh of relief. He saw now that his stay in the city would not be terminated as a guest in the workhouse. High-Pockets was very happy indeed.

"How can you be sure?" Arturius demanded.

"I'll show you," said High-Pockets. "Turn on the motor."

Arturius did. A strange thing happened. No. 7 began to turn. She pulled herself off of the cast. Somehow she broke loose the hardened metal on her vise-jaws. It dropped to the floor in one big piece. She came to a normal stop and stood there obediently.

"That's utterly impossible!" Arturius shouted. "It can't even turn over--with those cams broken out."

"She's chastened," High-Pockets said gently. "All you have to do from now on is to be firm."

The judge came closer. "Mr. Jones," he said, "I am beginning to believe that even a linotype operator has a place in this modern world. Suppose we all three go out and have a drink."

High-Pockets turned off the motor. "I heard you the first time, Your Honor, and I am happy to report that there are no extenuating circumstances. Shall we go?"