The Collection (30 page)

^"
Into what?
^"

^"
Into this,
^"
he said, and
wouldn
^'
t tell me a thing more until we got there. Then he rummaged
in all pigeonholes of his desk and pulled out a piece of dead copy and gave it
to me.

His face had a kind of wistful look.
^'
Walter,
^"
he said,
^"
maybe I
^'
m nuts, and I want to find out. I
guess running a local paper for twenty-two years and doing all the work myself
and trying to please everybody is enough to get a man off his rocker, but I
want to find out."

I looked at him, and I looked at the copy sheet he
^'
d
handed to me. It was just an ordinary sheet of foolscap and it was in
handwriting that I recognized as that of Hank Rogg, the hardware merchant over
at Hales Corners who sends in items from there. There were the usual
misspellings one would expect from Hank, but the item itself wasn
^'
t
news to me. It read:
^"
The weding of H.M. Klaflin and Miss
Margorie Burke took place yesterday evening at the home of the bride. The
bridesmades were—"

I quit reading and looked up at George and wondered what he
was getting at. I said,
^"
So what? This was two days ago, and I
attended the wedding myself. There's nothing funny about—
^"

^"
Listen, Walter," he said,
^"
set
that for me, will you? Go over and sit down at the Linotype and set that whole
thing. It won
^'
t run over ten or twelve lines.
^"

^"
Sure, but why?
^"

^"
Because— Well, just set it, Walter. Then
I'll tell you why.
^"
So I went out in the shop and sat down at
the Linotype, and I ran a couple of pi lines to get the feel of the keyboard
again, and then I put the copy on the clipboard and started. I said,
^"
Hey,
George, Marjorie spells her name with a j, doesn't she, instead of a g?"

And George said,
^"
Yeah,
^"
in
a funny tone of voice.

I ran off the rest of the squib, and then looked up and
said, "Well?"

He came across and lifted the stick out of the machine and
read the slugs upside down like all printers read type, and he sighed. He said,
^"
Then it wasn
^'
t me. Lookit, Walter.
^"

He handed me the stick, and I read the type, or started to.

It read. "The weding of H.M. Klaflin and Miss Margorie
Burke took place yesterday evening at the home of the bride. The bridesmades
were—
^"

I grinned. "Good thing I don't have to set type for a
living anymore, George. I
^'
m slipping; three errors in the first five
lines. But what about it? Now tell me why you wanted me to set it.
^"

He said,
^"
Set the first couple lines over
again, Walter. I—I want you to find out for yourself.
^"

I looked up at him and he looked so darned serious and
worried that I didn
^'
t argue. I turned back to the keyboard and started
out again :
^"
The wedding of —" My eyes went up to the
assembly slide and read the characters on the front of the mats that had
dropped, and I saw that it read,
^"
The weding of—
^"

There
^'
s one advantage about a Linotype you may
not know if you're not a printer. You can always make a correction in a line if
you make it before you push the lever that sends in the line of matrices to
cast the slug. You just drop the mats you need for the correction and put them
in the right place by hand.

So I pushed the d key to get another d matrix to correct the
misspelled word
^"
weding
^"
—and nothing happened.
The keycam was going around all right and the click sounded O.K., but no d mat
dropped. I looked up top to see if there was a distributor stop and there wasn
^'
t.

I stood up.
^"
The d channel
^'
s
jammed,
^"
I said. To be sure before I started to work on it, I
held the d key down a minute and listened to the series of clicks while the
keyboard cam went round.

But no d matrix dropped, so I reached for the…

^"
Skip it, Walter,
^"
said
George Ronson quietly.
^"
Send in the line and keep on going.
^"

I sat down again and decided to humor him. If I did, I
^'
d
probably find out what he was leading up to quicker than if I argued. I
finished the first line and started the second and came to the word
^"
Margorie"
on copy. I hit the M key, the a, r, j, o—and happened to glance at the assembly
slide. The matrices there read "Margo—"

I said,
^"
Damn,
^"
and hit the
j key again to get a j mat to substitute for the g, and nothing happened. The
j channel must be jammed. I held the j key down and no mat dropped. I said,
"Damn," again and stood up to look over the escapement mechanism.

^"
Never mind, Walter,
^"
said
George. There was a funny blend of a lot of things in his voice; a sort of
triumph over me, I guess; and a bit of fear and a lot of bewilderment and a
touch of resignation.
^"
Don
^'
t you see?
It follows
copy!
^"

^"
It—what?"

^"
That
^'
s why I wanted you to try
it out, Walter,
^"
he said.
^"
Just to make sure it
was the machine and not
me.
Lookit; that copy in the clipboard has
w-e-d-i-n-g for wedding, and M-a-r-g-or-i-e- for Marjorie—and
no matter
what keys you hit, that
^'
s the way the mats drop.
^"

I said,
^"
Bosh. George, have you been
drinking?
^"

^"
Don
^'
t believe me,
^"
he said.
^"
Keep on trying to set those lines right. Set your
correction for the fourth line; the one that has b-r-i-d-e-s-m-a-d-e-s in
it."

I grunted, and I looked back at the stick of type to see
what word the fourth line started with, and I started hitting keys. I set,
^"
The
bridesma," and then I stopped. Slowly and deliberately and looking at the
keyboard while I did it, I put my index finger on the i key and pushed. I heard
the mat click through the escapement, and I looked up and saw it fall over the
star wheel. I knew I hadn
^'
t hit the wrong key on that one. The mats
in the assembly elevator read—yes, you
^'
ve guessed it:
^"
brides-mad—"

I said,
^"
I don
^'
t believe it.
^"

George Ronson looked at me with a sort of lopsided, worried
grin. He said,
^"
Neither did I. Listen, Walter, I
^'
m
going out to take a walk. I'm going nuts. I can't stand it here right now. You
go ahead and convince yourself. Take your time.
^"

I watched him until he
^'
d gone out the door. Then
with a kind of funny feeling, I turned back to the Linotype. It was a long time
before I believed it, but it was so.

No matter what keys I hit, the damn machine followed copy,
errors and all.

I went the whole hog finally. I started over again, and set
the first couple of words and then began to sweep my fingers down the rows of
keys in sweeps like an operator uses to fill out a pi line: ETAOIN SHRDLU
ETAOIN SHRDLU ETAOIN SHRDLU—and I didn
^'
t look at the matrices in the
assembler slide. I sent them in to cast, and I picked up the hot slug that the
ejector pushed out of the mold and I read:
^"
The weding of H. M.
Klaflin and—
^"

There was sweat on my forehead. I wiped it off and then I
shut off the machine and went out to look for George Ronson. I didn
^'
t
have to look very hard because he was right where I knew I
^'
d find
him. I ordered a drink, too.

He
^'
d taken a look at my face when I walked into
the bar, and I guess he didn
^'
t have to ask me what had happened.

We touched our glasses together and downed the contents
before either of us said anything at all. Then I asked,
^"
Got
any idea
why
it works like that?
^"

He nodded.

I said, "Don
^'
t tell me. Wait until I
^'
ve
had a couple more drinks and then I can take it—maybe.
^"
I
raised my voice and said,
^"
Hey, Joe; just leave that bottle in
reach on the bar. We
^'
ll settle for it.
^"

He did, and I had two more shots fairly quick. Then I closed
my eyes and said, "All right, George, why?
^"

"Remember that guy who had those special mats cut and
rented the use of my Linotype to set up something that was too secret for
anybody to read? I can
^'
t remember his name—what was it?
^"

I tried to remember, and I couldn
^'
t. I had
another drink and said, "Call him the L.G.W.T.P."

George wanted to know why and I told him, and he filled his
glass again and said,
^"
I got a letter from him.
^"

I said, "That's nice." And I had another drink and
said, "Got the letter with you?
^"

^"
Huh-uh. I didn
^'
t keep it.
^"

I said, "Oh."

Then I had another drink and asked,
^"
Do you
remember what
it
said?"

^"
Walter, I remember parts of it. Didn
^'
t
read it cl-closely. I thought the guy was screwy, see? I threw it
^'
way.
^"

He stopped and had another drink, and finally I got tired
waiting and said, "Well?"

"Well, what?"

^"
The letter. What did the part you remember
shay?
^"

^"
Oh, that,
^"
said George.
^"
Yeah.
Something about Lilo-Linotl —you know what I mean.
^"

By that time the bottle on the bar in front us couldn
^'
t
have been the same one, because this one was two-thirds full and the other one
had been only one-third full. I took another drink. "What'd he shay about
it?"

"Who?"

"Th' L.G.—G.P.—aw, th' guy who wrote th' letter."

"Wha' letter?" asked George.

***

I woke up somewhere around noon the next day, and I felt
awful. It took me a couple of hours to get bathed and shaved and feeling good
enough to go out, but when I did I headed right for George
^'
s
printing shop.

He was running the press, and he looked almost as bad as I
felt. I picked up one of the papers as it came off and looked at it. It
^'
s
a four-sheet and the inside two are boiler plate, but the first and fourth
pages are local stuff.

I read a few items, including one that started off:
^"
The
weding of H.M. Klaflin and Miss Margorie—" and I glanced at the silent
Linotype back in the corner and from it to George and back to that silent hulk
of steel and cast iron.

I had to yell to George to be heard over the noise of the
press.
^"
George, listen. About the Lino—" Somehow I couldn
^'
t
make myself
yell
something that sounded silly, so I compromised.
^"
Did
you get it fixed?
^"
I asked.

He shook his head, and shut off the press.
^"
That
^'
s
the run,
^"
he said.
^"
Well, now to get them
folded.
^"

^"
Listen,
^"
I said,
^"
the
hell with the papers. What I want to know is how you got to press at all. You
didn't have half your quota set when I was here yesterday, and after all we
drank, I don't see how you did it."

He grinned at me.
^"
Easy,
^"
he
said.
^"
Try it. All you got to do, drunk or sober, is sit down
at that machine and put copy on the clipboard and slide your fingers around on
the keys a bit, and it sets the copy. Yes, mistakes and all—but, after this,
I'll just correct the errors on copy before I start. This time I was too
tight, Walter, and they had to go as was. Walter, I
^'
m beginning to
like
that machine. This is the first time in a year I
^'
ve got to press
exactly on time.
^"

^"
Yeah,
^"
I said, "but—
^"

^"
But what?
^"

"But—" I wanted to say that I still didn
^'
t
believe it, but I couldn
^'
t. After all, I
^'
d tried out that
machine yesterday while I
^'
d been cold sober.

I walked over closer and looked at it again. It looked
exactly like any other one-magazine model Linotype from where I stood. I knew
every cog and spring in it.

^"
George,
^"
I said uneasily,
"I got a feeling the damn thing is
looking
at me. Have you felt—
^"

He nodded. I turned back and looked at the Linotype again,
and I was sure this time, and I closed my eyes and felt it even more strongly. You
know that feeling you get once in a while, of being stared at? Well, this was
stronger. It wasn
^'
t exactly an unfriendly stare. Sort of impersonal.
It made me feel scared stiff.