The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature)

by Mark Twain

  "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 imposingstone 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 eve-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?"FortyFour, that's the quoin-box, under the stone table!"

  In an instant he had it out and on the imposingstone! 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. FortyFour 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, "FortyFour, 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 FortyFour 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! Ile raised his 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 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 p
aper 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 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.