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I took my time to consider whatever occurred to me, and was in no hurry to give a sophistical answer to a question there was no printer's devil waiting for me. I used to write a page or two perhaps in half a year; and remember laughing heartily at the celebrated experimentalist Nicholson, who told me that in twenty years he had written as much as would make three hundred octavo volumes.
Every court and alley whispers of books and of the making of books: forms of type, trundled noisily on trolleys by ink-smeared boys, salute the wayfarer at odd corners; piles of strawboard, rolls or bales of paper, drums of printing-ink or roller composition stand on the pavement outside dark entries; basement windows give glimpses into Hadean caverns tenanted by legions of printer's devils; and the very air is charged with the hum of press and with odors of glue and paste and oil.
In frantic effort to sustain her failing prestige Uniontown projected a rival paper and the Northern Californian was spoken into being. My father was a half owner, and I coveted the humble position of printer's devil.
For the most part readers in town and the suburbs only glance at the exciting portions of papers, and then cast them aside. Readers in the villages read every line from the first column to the last, from the title to the printer's address.
Vincent had very few traces of his tropical extraction in his nature, and his caution and reserve would have made him disposed to wait at least until his book were safe in the haven of printer's ink before confessing that he was an author. But Mabel's appeal scattered all his prudence.
"A great many ladies did," commented her father as the horse sedately stopped before the office of the Arcady Herald-Journal, of which he was day and night editor, sporting editor, proprietor, society editor, chief of the advertising department, and occasionally type-setter and printer and printer's devil.
There were occasions when they mingled with an agreeable courtesy, yet each side kept its proper and distinctive relations; real worth was respected and dignified living held in esteem. From a printer's boy, Benjamin Franklin had stood before kings and added luster to his country.
So he kept on looking about, asking casual questions, listening. In the language of the street he was getting wise. Incidentally he enjoyed himself. The battle ground had been transferred to Paris. The pen, the typewriter, and the press dispatch, with immense reserves of oratory and printer's ink, had gone into action.
For a month or two the province was convulsed by the conduct of the former provincial secretary, Sir Rupert D. George, who, amid the plaudits of fashionable Halifax, refused to resign. But Sir Rupert was dismissed with a pension, and Joe Howe ruled in his stead. The ten years' conflict was at an end. The printer's boy had faced the embattled oligarchy, and had won. It was a bloodless victory.
For him the incident was closed. Juliana, a hand supporting her capable chin, steadily regarded his swaying shoulders and the yellow hair beneath his cap. In her nostrils was the scent of printer's ink and pipe tobacco. She reflectively rubbed her chin, for it had been stung with a day-old beard that pricked like a nettle.
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