So he went back to the battle. But now there wasn’t any copy, so he wandered around with that queer look on his face, and finally wound up in the locker room where he decided he might as well kill the pint. He smoked a cigarette and stuck his head out of the window into the fresh air.
When the pint was thoroughly defunct he returned. The machine was quiet again, but the stick was half full. He didn’t even look at it. There wasn’t any copy, but he took the type to the dump.
The next take was copy for “Good Morning, Glory,” the paper’s star columnist. That seemed to go very well. No. 7 perhaps couldn’t quite make out what was happening. Well, that was nothing. Most columnists were like that.
Then again there wasn’t any copy. A young fellow came down from the newsroom and spoke to the copy-cutter. “There’ll be a story down for the eleven-fifteen edition,” he said. “ ‘Two Women Murdered.’ About a column.”
The copy-cutter looked at the clock. “It’s eleven o’clock now,” he said. “Where is it?”
“Just starting to write it upstairs. We’ll get it down as fast as we can.”
The copy-cutter grumbled. “Better have a makeover, then. We won’t have time to handle it.”
But High-Pockets knew better. He poked his head over the desk and sneaked a look at No. 7. She was grinding away. High-Pockets went back to the dump and looked at the guideline of his stickful without copy. It said, “Two Women Murdered.”
But nobody would ever give out a long take like that so near closing time. He looked again. He should have known. The half-a-stickful was divided into thirds, carefully guided “First Add” and “Second Add,” and at the bottom of the last add was a turned slug and a line, “More to Come.”
The copy tube swished, and a carrier thumped in the box. “Here,” the copy-cutter said, “here’s a precede on that atomic bomb explosion. You might as well set that while we’re waiting.”
“Okay,” said High-Pockets, and in the now hazy recesses of his mind he made a mighty resolution: he would set this take himself; No. 7 be damned.
He went straight to the machine. Mats were dropping, but High-Pockets just raised his eyebrows and reached up and turned off the power. That would stop her.
He got his copy all fixed and his arms folded in, and then he unfolded one arm and turned on the power while his right hand hovered over the keyboard. Apparently No. 7 didn’t quite know what to make of this new attack, and he was able to get several lines through before she figured it out. Then she seemed to sit back and get her breath, and High-Pockets, with a wide grin on his face, manipulated the keyboard fast enough to keep the machine hung so she wouldn’t get a chance on her own hook.
But eventually he had a pileup of mats and had to miss a line. He was crestfallen. But strangely enough, she didn’t start in when he got the assembling elevator clear. He watched her out of the corner of his eye while he gingerly assembled the line, but nothing happened. He sent that line in and watched it go through without any disturbance, then he sat back a moment and he and the machine sized each other up. Still no mats dropped of their own volition. High-Pockets grinned. Maybe he was beginning to sober up.
He set a line and sent it in, watching. It justified and the pot came forward to cast. “Hmp,” said High-Pockets. “Who said she’s human? Subhuman, I call it.”
Something happened when he said that. The second justification lever went up with a bang that shook the whole machine, and High-Pockets reached for the clutch lever with his left hand.
But he was so long he had to grab something with his right hand to balance, and just then the line delivery came back with a snap and smashed his right thumb.
“Ouch!” said High-Pockets, and jumped up and then he swore and shook his hand.
A minute later he sat down again with a determined gleam in his eyes. He tightened the vise-locking screws and leaned over to look at the line, down in the jaws, to be sure the mats were in alignment before he pulled the clutch. And just then the right hand locking stud came loose with a snap and spun clockwise, and the cross-handle cracked him on the chin.
High-Pockets took it like a man. He didn’t even swear this time. He got out of his chair. “I will see if that line is all right,” he muttered. “If I don’t—”
He tightened the screw, then he got his head in under the intermediate bar to look. And at that moment a gust of air blew a cloud of graphite out of the intermediate channel and filled his right eye. He was nearly blinded, but he didn’t ask for help. Very quietly he wound his way to the washroom. He cleaned his face and worked the graphite out of his eye as well as he could, and then, with a determined look on his face, went back.
Arturius reached the machine about the same time he did, “What did you leave her on the cast for?” he barked.
High-Pockets didn’t answer.
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’
