He started for the proof room, clutching the proofs in one hand. His long arms swung as he weaved among the lights. He went in the door of the proof room and stood there a moment. His head was above the lights and for a moment he couldn’t see very clearly, but he demanded in his booming voice: “Who signed these proofs ‘R. M. S.’?”
There was a stir in the proofroom, and then a man at the far end of the table got to his feet. “I did,” he said in thunderous voice.
High-Pockets didn’t back down. “What the hell do you think this is—1910?” he demanded, waving the proofs. “This is a newspaper, isn’t it, not a dictionary?”
“Is it indeed?” said the man ominously, and High-Pockets thought he had heard that voice before. He stared toward the man and his eyes began to focus and then he saw who it was. A gulp started in High-Pockets’ adam’s-apple and traveled visibly down the full length of his body to the floor. He opened his mouth but no sound came out. His eyes became glazed like those of a man walking in his sleep.
“Your honor,” he said, at last, struggling to force words from his larynx and looking like a man in a very blue funk, “there are extenuating circumstances.”
Then he seemed to awaken. He looked around him. Through the glass windows of the proof room he saw a makeup man pushing a turtle to the stereotype room, and this seemed to give him a little grip on reality. He turned back with a certain air of assurance, as if he was about to take things decisively into his own hands. But he looked into His Honor’s stern countenance and that assurance wilted visibly. High-Pockets retreated in confusion.
Maybe No. 7 sympathized with him. At least she allowed him to correct the proofs without any trouble. High-Pockets even began to feel that there was some feeling of friendliness flowing between them.
He was working on his next take when he felt a presence behind him. He revolved in his chair, and he very nearly fell over when he once again faced His Honor, the Judge. His Honor had a long piece of pasted copy in one hand and was waving a proof in the other. “So,” His Honor said malevolently, “you’re the poet.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This.” His Honor waved the proof under High-Pockets’ nose. “You set this verse. It isn’t in the copy at all.”
High-Pockets felt uneasy. “Let’s see.” He read aloud:
“ ’Tis dawn in the woods. A gentleman slumbers
Beneath the protection of wild cucumbers.
The woodpeckers woodpeck, the rattlesnakes rattle,
And all the cockroaches prepare to do battle.”
High-Pockets gulped. He handed the proof back to His Honor: he revolved again and folded himself into the chair. He started to set type. Then he remembered. “Your Honor,” he said, “I had nothing to do with it. No. 7 did it.”
His Honor, goaded by High-Pockets’ temporary amnesia which looked very much like disrespect, exploded. “A machine! A machine did this?”
High-Pockets sent in the line and started another.
“Are you imputing intelligence to a machine?” His Honor demanded, and No. 7 seemed to hesitate for an instant. “No machine on earth could compose such awful poetry as this,” His Honor thundered.
No. 7 was casting. For no reason at all the plunger stuck in the bottom of the well and No. 7’s clutch chattered and shook the entire machine before High-Pockets shut off the power. High-Pockets revolved and looked at the judge and raised his eyebrows, then rang the bell.
This time the machinist was entirely speechless. High-Pockets pointed to the plunger. Arturius worked on it but couldn’t get it loose. He got a Crescent wrench. “Get hold of the first-elevator cam,” he said, “and back her up while I twist the plunger.”
His Honor stood by, waiting to take up the battle with High-Pockets.
High-Pockets got hold of the cam with a sardonic set to his lips. He yanked hard. No. 7 would find out who was boss.
But when he pulled, the screw holding the end of the second elevator starting spring came loose and the spring shot the screw into High-Pockets’ ribs with the force of a bullet. High-Pockets merely grunted.
“Wait, I’ll take the drive clutch,” Arturius said, as if he was beginning to be concerned.
High-Pockets shut off the power, and Arturius took hold of the clutch, one hand on each end, and turned forward.
The plunger started to lift. It came halfway up, and then the machine suddenly rolled backward again, with the heavy plunger spring helping it. The clutch spun like a top.
Arturius backed away holding the fingers of one hand.
“Get hurt?”
Arturius bit his lip. “No,” he said, “but pull that plunger pin before I try it again.”
High-Pockets pulled the pin, and Arturius got No. 7 off the cast. Then he went around to the front, took the controlling lever, and started to pull it out to finish the machine’s revolution.
He saw a loose mat on the vise and reached for it with his left hand. At that instant his hand slipped off the controlling lever, and the first elevator head came down with a crash.
But Arturius’ fingers were not there. He backed off and did the most thoroughly human thing he’d done in years. He thumbed his nose at No. 7. The judge looked skeptical.
“Look out!” High-Pockets yelled. “She’s backing!”
His long arms moved with astonishing speed. He practically snatched the judge up from the place where he stood and set him down again two feet away. And just in time, for a stream of silvery, molten metal rose in a wide arc from the vise-jaws of No. 7 and came down exactly where His Honor’s bald head had been. About three pounds of it descended to the floor and lay there hardening and smoking like an overdone pancake.
Sweat popped out on the
