The printing press, too, was now a success. What time Bobby could spare, he spent over his new work. In fact he would probably have printed out all his interest in the shape of cards for friends and relatives, did not an incident spur his failing enthusiasm. The little tin box of printer's ink went empty. Bobby tried to buy more at Smith's where other kinds of ink were to be had. Mr. Smith had none.

"You'd better go over to Mr. Daggett's," he advised. "He'll let you have some."

Bobby crossed the street, climbed a stairway slanting outside a square wooden store building and for the first time found himself in a printing office.

Tall stands held tier after tier of type-cases, slid in like drawers. The tops were slanted. On them stood other cases, their queerly arranged and various-sized compartments exposed to view. Down the centre of the room ran a long table. One end of it was heaped with printed matter in piles and in packages, the other was topped with smooth stone on which rested forms made up. Shelves filled with stationery, cans and the like ran down one side the room. Beyond the table were two presses, a big and a little. In one corner stood a table with a gas jet over it. In another was an open sink with running water. A thin man in dirty shirt-sleeves was setting type from one of the cases. Another, shorter man at the stone-topped table was tapping lightly with a mallet on a piece of wood which he moved here and there over a form. A boy of fifteen was printing at the smaller of the presses. A huge figure was sprawled over the table in the corner. In the air hung the delicious smell of printer's ink and the clank and chug of the press.

Bobby stood in the doorway some time. Finally the boy said something to the man at the table. The latter looked up, then arose and came forward.

He was of immense frame, but gaunt and caved-in from much stooping and a consumptive tendency. His massive bony shoulders hung forward; his head was carried in advance. In character this head was like that of a Jove condemned through centuries to long hours in a dark, unwholesome atmosphere--the grand, square, bony structure, the thick, upstanding hair, the bushy, steady eyebrows, the heavy beard. But the cheeks beneath the beard were sunken; the eyes in the square-cut caverns were kind and gentle--and very weary.

"I want to see if I can get some ink of you," requested Bobby, holding out his little tin box.

Mr. Daggett took the box without replying; and, opening it, tested with his finger the quality and colour of what it had contained.

"I guess so," said he.

He led the way to one of the shelves and opened a can as big as a bucket. Bobby gasped.

"My!" he cried; "will you ever use all that?"

Mr. Daggett nodded, and, dipping a broad-bladed knife, brought up, on merely its point, enough to fill Bobby's tin box.

"How much is it?" asked Bobby.

"Let's see, you're Jack Orde's little boy, aren't you?" asked Daggett.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, that's all right, then. It's nothing."

"Oh, thank you!" cried Bobby, overwhelmed. The man nodded his massive head. "Please," ventured Bobby, hesitating, "please, would you mind if I stay a little while and watch?"

"'Course not," assured Mr. Daggett. "Stay as long as you want."

He returned to his table and forgot the little boy. An hour later he looked up. Bobby was still there standing in the middle of the floor, staring with all his might. Mr. Daggett pulled together his great frame and arose.

"Have you a printing press?" he asked Bobby.

"Yes, sir," replied Bobby--"it's only a little one--to print two lines," he added.

"Do you like printing?"

"Oh!" burst out Bobby enthusiastically, "it's more fun than anything!"

"I'd like to see some of your work," said Mr. Daggett a flash of amusement flickering in his deep eyes.

Bobby felt in his pocket and gravely presented a card.

"Mr. Robert Orde.
Job Printer."

"Why," said Mr. Daggett, surprised, "this is pretty well done. I didn't know you could make ready so well on those little presses."

"What's 'make ready'?" asked Bobby.

"Why, regulating the impression so that all the letters are printed evenly."

"They didn't for a long time," sighed Bobby. "I had lots of trouble."

"How did you make it go?" asked Mr. Daggett, interested.

Bobby explained the pasting of the slips of paper.

"Who taught you that?" asked Mr. Daggett sharply.

"Nobody; I just thought of it."

Two hours later, when the noon whistles blew, Bobby said good-bye to his friend after a most interesting morning. Mr. Daggett had showed him everything. He explained how in the type-cases the capital letters occupied little compartments all alike and at the top, but how the small letters were arranged arbitrarily in various-sized compartments.

"You see," said he, "we use the _e_ often............