by Mark Twain
We three humble ones sat at our small table staring; and thinking thoughts. Barty looked pale and sick. Ernest searched my face with his evil eyes, and said,
“I caught you talking with the Jail-Bird on the stairs. You needn’t try to lie out of it, I saw you.”
All the blood seemed to sink out of my veins, and a cold terror crept through me. In my heart I cursed the luck that had brought upon me that exposure. What should I do? What could I do? What could I say in my defence? I could think of nothing; I had no words, I was dumb—and that creature’s merciless eyes still boring into me. He said,
“Say—you are that animal’s friend. Now deny it if you can.”
I was in a bad scrape. He would tell the men, and I should be an outcast, and they would make my life a misery to me. I was afraid enough of the men, and wished there was a way out, but I saw there was none, and that if I did not want to complete my disaster I must pluck up some heart and not let this brute put me under his feet. I wasn’t afraid of him, at any rate; even my timidity had its limitations. So I pulled myself together and said,
“It’s a lie. I did talk with him, and I’ll do it again if I want to, but that’s no proof that I’m his friend.”
“Oho, so you don’t deny it! That’s enough. I wouldn’t be in your shoes for a good deal. When the men find it out you’ll catch it, I can tell you that.”
That distressed Barty, and he begged Ernest not to tell on me, and tried his best to persuade him; but it was of no use. He said he would tell if he died for it.
“Well, then,” I said, “go ahead and do it; it’s just like your sort, anyway. Who cares?”
“Oh, you don’t care, don’t you? Well, we’ll see if you won’t. And I’ll tell them you’re his friend, too.”
If that should happen! The terror of it roused me up, and I said,
“Take that back, or I’ll stick this dirk into you!”
He was badly scared, but pretended he wasn’t, and laughed a sickly laugh and said he was only funning. That ended the discussion, for just then the master rose to go, and we had to rise, too, and look to our etiquette. I was sufficiently depressed and unhappy, for I knew there was sorrow in store for me. Still, there was one comfort: I should not be charged with being poor 44’s friend, I hoped and believed; so matters were not quite so calamitous for me as they might have been.
We filed up to the printing rooms in the usual order of precedence, I following after the last man, Ernest following after me, and Barty after him. Then came 44.
Forty-Four would have to do his studying after hours. During hours he would now fill Barty’s former place and put in a good deal of his time in drudgery and dirty work; and snatch such chances as he could, in the intervals, to learn the first steps of the divine art—composition, distribution and the like.
Certain ceremonies were Forty-Four’s due when as an accredited apprentice he crossed the printing-shop’s threshold for the first time. He should have been invested with a dagger, for he was now privileged to bear minor arms—foretaste and reminder of the future still prouder day when as a journeyman he would take the rank of a gentleman and be entitled to wear a sword. And a red chevron should have been placed upon his left sleeve to certify to the world his honorable new dignity of printer’s apprentice. These courtesies were denied him, and omitted. He entered unaccosted and unwelcomed.
The youngest apprentice should now have taken him in charge and begun to instruct him in the rudimentary duties of his position. Honest little Barty was commencing this service, but Katzenyammer the foreman stopped him, and said roughly,
“Get to your case!”
So 44 was left standing alone in the middle of the place. He looked about him wistfully, mutely appealing to all faces but mine, but no one noticed him, no one glanced in his direction, or seemed aware that he was there. In the corner old Binks was bowed over a proof-slip; Katzenyammer was bending over the imposing-stone making up a form; Ernest, with ink-ball and coarse brush was proving a galley; I was overrunning a page of Haas’s to correct an out; Fischer, with paste-pot and brown linen, was new-covering the tympan; Moses was setting type, pulling down his guide for every line, weaving right and left, bobbing over his case with every type he picked up, fetching the box-partition a wipe with it as he brought it away, making two false motions before he put it in the stick and a third one with a click on his rule, justifying like a rail fence, spacing like an old witch’s teeth—hair-spaces and m-quads turn about—just a living allegory of falseness and pretence from his green silk eye-shade down to his lifting and sinking heels, making show and bustle enough for 3,000 an hour, yet never good for 600 on a fat take and double-leaded at that. It was inscrutable that God would endure a comp like that, and lightning so cheap.
It was pitiful to see that friendless boy standing there forlorn in that hostile stillness. I did wish somebody would relent and say a kind word and tell him something to do. But it could not happen; they were all waiting to see trouble come to him, all expecting it, all tremulously alert for it, all knowing it was preparing for him, and wondering whence it would come, and in what form, and who would invent the occasion. Presently they knew. Katzenyammer had placed his pages, separated them with reglets, removed the strings from around them, arranged his bearers; the chase was on, the sheep-foot was in his hand, he was ready to lock up. He slowly turned his head and fixed an inquiring scowl upon the boy. He stood so, several seconds, then he stormed out,
“Well, are you going to fetch me some quoins, or not?”
Cruel! How could he know what the strange word meant? He begged for the needed information with his eloquent eyes—the men were watching and exulting—Katzenyammer began to move toward him with his big hand spread for cuffing—ah, my God, I mustn’t venture to speak, was there no way to save him? Then I had a lightning thought; would he gather it from my brain?—“Forty-Four, that’s the quoin-box, under the stone table!”
In an instant he had it out and on the imposing-stone! He was saved. Katzenyammer and everybody looked amazed. And deeply disappointed.
For a while Katzenyammer seemed to be puzzling over it and trying to understand it; then he turned slowly to his work and selected some quoins and drove them home. The form was ready. He set that inquiring gaze upon the boy again. Forty-Four was watching with all his eyes, but it wasn’t any use; how was he to guess what was wanted of him? Katzenyammer’s face began to work, and he spat dry a couple of times, spitefully; then he shouted,
“Am I to do it—or who?”
I was ready this time. I said to myself, “Forty-Four, raise it carefully on its edge, get it under your right arm, carry it to that machine yonder, which is the press, and lay it gently down flat on that stone, which is called the bed of the press.”
He went tranquilly to work, and did the whole thing as right as nails—did it like an old hand! It was just astonishing. There wasn’t another untaught and unpractised person in all Europe who could have carried that great and delicate feat half-way through without piing the form. I was so carried away that I wanted to shout. But I held in.
Of course the thing happened, now, that was to be expected. The men took Forty-Four for an old apprentice, a refugee flying from a hard master. They could not ask him, as to that, custom prohibiting it; but they could ask him other questions which could be awkward. They could be depended upon to do that. The men all left their work and gathered around him, and their ugly looks promised trouble. They looked him over silently—arranging their game, no doubt—he standing in the midst, waiting, with his eyes cast down. I was dreadfully sorry for him. I knew what was coming, and I saw no possibility of his getting out of the hole he was in. The very first question would be unanswerable, and quite out of range of help from me. Presently that sneering Moses Haas asked it:
“So you are an experienced apprentice to this art, and yet don’t know the Latin!”
There it was! I knew it. But—oh, well, the boy was just an ever-fresh and competent mystery! He raised h
is innocent eyes and placidly replied,
“Who—I? Why yes, I know it.”
They gazed at him puzzled—stupefied, as you might say. Then Katzenyammer said,
“Then what did you tell the master that lie for?”
“I? I didn’t know I told him a lie; I didn’t mean to.”
“Didn’t mean to? Idiot! he asked you if you knew the Latin, and you said no.”
“Oh, no,” said the youth, earnestly, “it was quite different. He asked me if I had studied it—meaning in a school or with a teacher, as I judged. Of course I said no, for I had only picked it up—from books—by myself.”
“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 inking-balls 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!
Chapter 8
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 regularly 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. He 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 be 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 be 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 foot-notes 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 good 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.
