The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature) (39 page)

"Well, upon my soul, you are a purist, when it comes to cast-iron
exactness of statement," said Katzenyammer, exasperated. "Nobody knows how to take you or what to make of you; every time a
person puts his finger on you you're not there. Can't you do
anything but the unexpected? If you belonged to me, damned if I
wouldn't drown you."

"Look here, my boy," said Fischer, not unkindly, "do you know -as required-the rudiments of all those things the master asked
you about?"

"Yes, sir."

"Picked them up?"

"Yes, sir."

I wished he hadn't made that confession. Moses saw a chance
straightway:

"Honest people don't get into this profession on picked-up culture; they don't get in on odds and ends, they have to know the
initial stages of the sciences and things. You sneaked in without an
examination, but you'll pass one now, or out you go."

It was a lucky idea, and they all applauded. I felt more comfortable, now, for if he could take the answers from my head I could
send him through safe. Adam Binks was appointed inquisitor, but I
soon saw that 44 had no use for me. He was away up. I would have
shown off if I had been in his place and equipped as he was. But he
didn't. In knowledge Binks was a child to him-that was soon
apparent. He wasn't competent to examine 44; 44 took him out of
his depth on every language and art and science, and if erudition
had been water he would have been drowned. The men had to
laugh, they couldn't help it; and if they had been manly men they
would have softened toward their prey, but they weren't and they
didn't. Their laughter made Binks ridiculous, and he lost his temper; but instead of venting it on the laughers he let drive at the boy,
the shameless creature, and would have felled him if Fischer hadn't
caught his arm. Fischer got no thanks for that, and the men would
have resented his interference, only it was not quite safe and they
didn't want to drive him from their clique, anyway. They could see
that he was at best only lukewarm on their side, and they didn't
want to cool his temperature any more.

The examination-scheme was a bad failure-a regular collapse,
in fact,-and the men hated the boy for being the cause of it,
whereas they had brought it upon themselves. That is just like
human beings. The foreman spoke up sharply, now, and told them
to get to work; and said that if they fooled away any more of the shop's time he would dock them. Then he ordered 44 to stop idling
around and get about his business. No one watched 44 now; they
all thought he knew his duties, and where to begin. But it was plain
to me that he didn't; so I prompted him out of my mind, and
couldn't keep my attention on my work, it was so interesting and so
wonderful to see him perform.

Under my unspoken instructions he picked up all the good type
and broken type from about the men's feet and put the one sort in
the pi pile and the other in the hell-box; turpentined the inkingballs and cleaned them; started up the ley-hopper; washed a form in
the sink, and did it well; removed last week's stiff black towel from
the roller and put a clean one in its place; made paste; dusted out
several cases with a bellows; made glue for the bindery; oiled the
platen-springs and the countersunk rails of the press; put on a paper
apron and inked the form while Katzenyammer worked off a token
of signature 16 of a Latin Bible, and came out of the job as black as
a chimney-sweep from hair to heels; set up pi; struck galley-proofs;
tied up dead matter like an artist, and set it away on the standing
galley without an accident; brought the quads when the men jeff'd
for takes, and restored them whence they came when the lucky
comps were done chuckling over their fat and the others done
damning their lean; and would have gone innocently to the village
saddler's after strap-oil and got it-on his rear-if it had occurred to
the men to start him on the errand-a thing they didn't think of,
they supposing he knew that sell by memorable experience; and so
they lost the best chance they had in the whole day to expose him
as an impostor who had never seen a printing-outfit before.

A marvelous creature; and he went through without a break; but
by consequence of my having to watch over him so persistently I set
a proof that had the smallpox, and the foreman made me distribute
his case for him after hours as a "lesson" to me. He was not a stingy
man with that kind of tuition.

I had saved 44, unsuspected and without damage or danger to
myself, and it made me lean toward him more than ever. That was
natural.

Then, when the day was finished, and the men were washing up
and I was feeling good and fine and proud, Ernest Wasserman
came out and told on me!

I SLIPPED out and fled. It was wise, for in this way I escaped the
first heat of their passion, or I should have gotten not merely
insults but kicks and cuffs added. I hid deep down and far away, in
an unvisited part of the castle among a maze of dark passages and
corridors. Of course I had no thought of keeping my promise to visit
44; but in the circumstances he would not expect it-I knew that. I
had to lose my supper, and that was hard lines for a growing lad.
And I was like to freeze, too, in that damp and frosty place. Of
sleep little was to be had, because of the cold and the rats and the
ghosts. Not that I saw any ghosts, but I was expecting them all the
time, and quite naturally, too, for that historic old ruin was lousy
with them, so to speak, for it had had a tough career through all the
centuries of its youth and manhood-a career filled with romance
and sodden with crime-and it is my experience that between the
misery of watching and listening for ghosts and the fright of seeing
them there is not much choice. In truth I was not sorry sleep was
chary, for I did not wish to sleep. I was in trouble, and more was
preparing for me, and I wanted to pray for help, for therein lay my
best hope and my surest. I had moments of sleep now and then,
being a young creature and full of warm blood, but in the long
intervals I prayed persistently and fervently and sincerely. But I
knew I needed more powerful prayers than my own-prayers of
the pure and the holy-prayers of the consecrated-prayers certain
to be heard, whereas mine might not be. I wanted the prayers of the
Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. They could be had for 50 silver
groschen. In time of threatened and imminent trouble, trouble
which promised to be continuous, one valued their championship
far above that of any priest, for his prayers would ascend at regu larly appointed times only, with nothing to protect you in the
exposed intervals between, but theirs were perpetual-hence their
name-there were no intervals, night or day: when two of the
Sisters rose from before the altar two others knelt at once in their
place and the supplications went on unbroken. Their convent was
on the other side of the river, beyond the village, but Katrina would
get the money to them for me. They would take special pains for
any of us in the castle, too, for our Prince had been doing them a
valuable favor lately, to appease God on account of a murder he
had done on an elder brother of his, a great Prince in Bohemia and
head of the house. fie had repaired and renovated and sumptuously fitted up the ancient chapel of our castle, to be used by
them while their convent, which had been struck by lightning
again and much damaged, was undergoing reparations. They
would be coming over for Sunday, and the usual service would be
greatly augmented, in fact doubled: the Sacred Host would he
exposed in the monstrance, and four Sisters instead of two would
hold the hours of adoration; yet if you sent your 50 groschen in
time you would he entitled to the advantage of this, which is
getting in on the ground floor, as the saying is.

Our Prince not only did for them what I have mentioned, but
was paying for one-third of those repairs on their convent besides.
Hence we were in great favor. That dear and honest old Father
Peter would conduct the service for them. Father Adolf was not
willing, for there was no money in it for the priest, the money all
going to the support of a little house of homeless orphans whom the
good Sisters took care of.

At last the rats stopped scampering over me, and I knew the long
night was about at an end; so I groped my way out of my refuge.
When I reached Katrina's kitchen she was at work by candle-light,
and when she heard my tale she was full of pity for me and
maledictions for Ernest, and promised him a piece of her mind,
with footnotes and illustrations; and she bustled around and hurried up a hot breakfast for me, and sat down and talked and
gossiped, and enjoyed my voracity, as a zood cook naturally would,
and indeed I was fairly famished. And it was good to hear her rage at those rascals for persecuting her boy, and scoff at them for that
they couldn't produce one individual manly enough to stand up for
him and the master. And she burst out and said she wished to God
Doangivadam was here, and I just jumped up and flung my arms
around her old neck and hugged her for the thought! Then she
went gently down on her knees before the little shrine of the
Blessed Virgin, I doing the same of course, and she prayed for help
for us all out of her fervent and faithful heart, and rose up refreshed and strengthened and gave our enemies as red-hot and
competent a damning as ever came by natural gift from uncultured
lips in my experience.

The dawn was breaking, now, and I told her my project concerning the Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration, and she praised me and
blest me for my piety and right-heartedness, and said she would
send the money for me and have it arranged. I had to ask would she
lend me two groschen, for my savings lacked that much of being
fifty, and she said promptly-

"Will I? and you in this trouble for being good to my boy? That I
will; and I'd do it if it was five you wanted!"

And the tears came in her eyes and she gave me a hug; then I
basted to my room and shut the door and locked it, and fished my
hoard out of its hiding-place and counted the coins, and there were
fifty. I couldn't understand it. I counted them again-twice; but
there was no error, there were two there that didn't belong. So I
didn't have to go into debt, after all. I gave the money to Katrina
and told her the marvel, and she counted it herself and was astonished, and couldn't understand it any more than I could. Then
came sudden comprehension! and she sank down on her knees
before the shrine and poured out her thanks to the Blessed Virgin
for this swift and miraculous answer.

She rose up the proudest woman in all that region; and she was
justified in feeling so. She said-and tried to say it humbly-

"To think She would do it for me, a poor lowly servant, dust of
the earth: There's crowned monarchs She wouldn't do it for!" and
her eyes blazed up in spite of her.

It was all over the castle in an hour, and wheresoever she went,
there they made reverence and gave her honor as she passed by.

It was a bad day that had dawned for 44 and me, this wretched
Tuesday. The men were sour and ugly. They snarled at me whenever they could find so much as half an occasion, they sneered at
me and made jokes about me; and when Katzenyammer wittily
called me by an unprintable name they shouted with laughter, and
sawed their boxes with their composing-rules, which is a comp's
way of expressing sarcastic applause. The laughter was praise of the
foreman's wit, the sarcasm was for me. You must choose your man
when you saw your box; not every man will put up with it. It is the
most capable and eloquent expression of derision that human
beings have ever invented. It is an urgent and strenuous and
hideous sound, and when an expert makes it it shrieks out like the
braying of a jackass. I have seen a comp draw his sword for that. As
for that name the foreman gave me, it stung me and embittered me
more than any of the other hurts and humiliations that were put
upon me; and I was girl-boy enough to cry about it, which delighted the men beyond belief, and they rubbed their hands and
shrieked with delight. Yet there was no point in that name when
applied to a person of my shape, therefore it was entirely witless. It
was the slang name (imported from England), used by printers to
describe a certain kind of type. All types taper slightly, and are
narrower at the letter than at the base of the shank; but in some
fonts this spread is so pronounced that you can almost detect it with
the eye, loose and exaggerative talkers asserting that it was exactly
the taper of a leather bottle. Hence that odious name: and now
they had fastened it upon me. If I knew anything about printers, it
would stick. Within the hour they had added it to my slug! Think
of that. Added it to my number, by initials, and there you could
read it in the list above the take-file: "Slug 4, B.-A." It may seem a
small thing; but I can tell you that not all seemingly small things
are small to a boy. That one shamed me as few things have done
since.

The men were persistently hard on poor unmurmuring 44. Every time he had to turn his back and cross the room they rained
quoins and 3-m quads after him, which struck his head and
bounded off in a kind of fountain-shower. Whenever he was bending down at any kind of work that required that attitude, the
nearest man would hit him a blistering whack on his southern
elevation with the flat of a galley, and then apologise and say,

"Oh, was it you? I'm sorry; I thought it was the master."

Then they would all shriek again.

And so on and so on. They insulted and afflicted him in every
way they could think of-and did it far more for the master's sake
than for his own. It was their purpose to provoke a retort out of 44,
then they would thrash him. But they failed, and considered the
day lost.

Wednesday they came loaded with new inventions, and expected
to have better luck. They crept behind him and slipped cakes of ice
down his back; they started a fire under the sink, and when he
discovered it and ran to put it out they swarmed there in artificial
excitement with buckets of water and emptied them on him instead
of on the fire, and abused him for getting in the way and defeating
their efforts; while he was inking for Katzenyammer, this creature
continually tried to catch him on the head with the frisket before
he could get out of the way, and at last fetched it down so prematurely that it failed to get home, but struck the bearers and got itself
bent like a bow-and he got a cursing for it, as if it had been his
fault.