LITTLE TOILERS OF THE NIGHT.

I.—THE PRINTER'S READING-BOY.

It is a gusty Friday night just after Easter. A night full of wind which comes in sudden blasts and drives the sharp shining rain along the streets so that it seems to pierce through coats and umbrellas, and makes such a quick pattering sound upon the pavement that people who are indoors, and just going to bed, pull aside their window-curtains, look out at the flickering lights, and feel glad to be at home.

Looking up from between the tall flat walls of the houses in a narrow court in Fleet Street, London, any one who has eyes can see the gleam of the moon, and the two or three stars that hang in the long strip of blue overhead. They can hear the rumble of the late cab, and the tramp of the policeman outside so plainly that these sounds are quite startling. For all day long Fleet Street is a busy place, with thousands of people going up and down, and hundreds of carts, cabs, waggons, cars, and carriages, hustling in the roadway, and people who have only seen and heard it in the day-time are surprised to find how silent and deserted it is at midnight.

But in the narrow court, and in many other courts and passages close by, there are other sounds and other lights than the noise of the policeman's boots and the gleaming of the stars. Any one who is standing there may hear a curious buzzing, and now and then a dull thump, and looking about may see more than one big building with its windows all aglow, and the shadows of people moving across them. Now and then a door will open, and a lad, perhaps without a cap, and with his jacket tied round his neck by the sleeves, will rush out as though the place were on fire and he had been sent to fetch an engine.

If you are standing near the door you will have to get out of the way of that lad, or he will be likely to run you down, or jam you against the wall, for he is in a hurry. He is not going to fetch an engine, for if you watch him he scampers down the next court, or perhaps across Fleet Street, and in less time than you can get your breath properly, is back with a tray piled with steaming mugs, and plates of thick bread-and-butter; and while you are wondering how he can have got them so quickly, and whether he will ever carry them up that steep flight of stairs behind the door of the big building, he gives a shout that seems to make twenty echoes, and then you lose sight of him.

In those big buildings with the dark doors and the lighted windows the news of the week is being printed, that people may read it in the papers. There the printers are at work, and will be at work all night; the lad who has just gone in is a printer's lad, and because of some part of the work he has to do he is called a "reading-boy."

Nearly every day this week numbers of letters and telegrams and written accounts of various things that have taken place in different parts of the world have been coming in to this building. When they come in the editor looks at them and sends them up to the chief compositor. The "compositors," up in the top rooms where the lights are shining, stand before large wooden trays or "cases," each of which is divided into a number of small squares, like boxes without lids. These boxes hold what are called the types. The types are little slips of metal, and on the end of each slip is stamped a letter. One of the boxes in the tray holds the a's, another the b's, another the c's, and the capital letters and the stops also have their proper places. When the compositor has the writing before him on his case, he takes a small metal box open at one end, and of the proper width, in his left hand, and with his right hand picks up one by one the metal letters that spell the words which are on the page. These he places in the box with the letter end upwards, putting a slip of metal without any letter upon it to make a space between each word. When he has filled his box he lifts all the letters carefully out without jumbling any of them up together, stands them in a tray, and keeps them from falling down by placing a flat rule of brass against the side of them. When he has set up so many of these metal letters that they are enough, when properly arranged in columns, to make a whole page of printing, they are all brought close together and then tightly fastened in a kind of frame, so that they are quite firm. They are next sent downstairs and placed on the press, or printing-machine. Large smooth rollers spread a thin coating of ink upon this metal page, and then the sheet of white paper is brought very firmly against it by a strong machine, which presses so evenly that the ink is stamped from the metal page of the types on to the paper. When that paper is removed it is a printed page, with the same words upon it that the compositor read upon the letter or written page sent in a little while ago. All night long these types with the letters upon them are being set up, all night long patient men pick up the metal letters and form them into pages; all night long the steam engine is going, and the letters from the inky metal pages are being stamped upon the clean white paper, which, when it is printed all over, will contain the week's history of the world, and will be read by thousands of people.

There are many lads in this printing-office, and all night they are running up and down with letters and sheets of writing and printing, or are cleaning the inky surface of the metal pages, or helping to fix up the frames. But why are some of them called "reading-boys?"

Of course when the metal letters are set up mistakes will occur now and then; so in the first impression printed from the type, before it is made up into the pages for printing already referred to and fastened into the metal frame, these mistakes must be put right. To do this one person takes the writing from which the type was set up, and another the impression from the type, and the man or boy who has the writing reads it aloud distinctly, while the other, who has the impression from the type, reads that to himself at the same time, and compares what he sees there with what he hears being read. If he comes to a word where there is a mistake he makes a mark against it, and sets it right. When the mistakes are all marked, the compositor sets them right by putting in the proper letters and words, instead of the wrong ones, and then another impression is printed to see whether all is right this time. These impressions that are read for mistakes are called "proofs," because they prove whether the work has been properly done. Sometimes, if the reading-boy is very clever, he can read the first writing, but the writing is very often so bad that even the men who set up the metal types can hardly read it. It is not pleasant work to sit all night in a close little hot room, with the gas flaring, and to hear the din, and feel the rolling of the great machinery, while you have to read all sorts of things that you don't care much for, and haven't time to think about; but that is what the "reading-boy" has often to do, though he sometimes has a good deal of running up and down stairs, and now and then rushes out to fetch tea, bread-and-butter, bacon, and other things for the men, or for himself and his companions. It is to get a second supply of these dainties that the boy whom we saw just now comes out again head-first, and with no jacket at all on this time. He carries the tray full of empty mugs, and before he can quite stop himself he comes suddenly against a burly, weather-beaten looking man, who is walking up the court, and seems to be lurching from side to side of the pavement. Before the lad can stop short, the edge of the tray comes against this man's elbow, and crash goes one of the mugs on the stones of the court.

"Now, then, stoopid!" shouts the boy. "Why can't you keep on your right side?"

"Is that the way you speaks to your uncle, Bennie?" says the big man, laughing. He is a short broad man, dressed in rough blue cloth, and with a shiny sou'-wester on his head. He looks like a pilot, but he is really a fisherman and a sailor, and he has come up all the way from Yarmouth on purpose to see Benny's mother, who is his own sister.

"Well, uncle, who could ha' thought of seeing you here; haven't you been to mother's?"

"No, my boy, I got to London by the late train, and so I thought I'd try and find you out, and we'll go home together. What a place this London is, to be sure, and what a stifly sort of alley this here is to be workin' in all night; it don't seem quite right for a lad of your age, Benny."

"Come, don't you go running down our court," says the boy. "I'm all right, uncle, specially since you was so kind as to pay for me to go to the classes. Why, bless you, I'm learning French and Latin now, and I'm put on to reading regular. I shouldn't wonder if I was to come to be a printer's reader, instead of a reading-boy, and earn ever so much a week by-and-by."

"What do you get now, Benny?"

"Eight shillings a week, uncle, and then you know I can help mother in the shop a bit; but I say, you don't mind waitin' a minute, while I go to the house over the way. There's only one or two places that keep open after twelve, because of our wanting tea, and ham, and rolls, and coffee, and all sorts o' things, to keep us going. It makes you precious faint to keep up night work without anything to eat, I can tell you, uncle."

"Well, I'll come with you, Benny, and wait for you at the shop, where I can fill my pipe. But where's your jacket, and where's your cap?"

"Oh, we don't have time to think about that. Something's wanted, and the bell rings, and somebody shouts down the speaking-tube, and off you go. It is precious cold sometimes, though, for the men at our place keep the room so hot. They can't bear a breath of air here, and for fear of a draught, and then getting their fingers cold so that they can't feel the type, they paste paper over every crack, and have all the windows fastened down, and make you pay a fine for leaving the door open. Why, uncle, you don't a bit know what it is. Talk about the hardships at sea, and being out night after night off what I've heard you call the Dogger Bank to catch codfish, they're nothing to being a boy in a printin' office where the machine's always going, and you've I don't know how many masters to order you about; but never you mind, I'm going to stick to it, and if they don't give me a rise to ten shillings next week, I'll leave and go into another place where they'll be proud of my talent, and admire me for my strength. Though I think I would rather be aboard the Saucy Nancy with you, after all. I should 'like 'a life on the ocean wave, uncle, and I do get so tired of the night work sometimes."

"Bless your heart, my boy; there's lads no bigger than you at the fishing stations that have as much night work as you do. Hard work in the cold and the wind and the wet, and often hungry work, and a good deal of danger too. There, get along, and fetch your coat, Benny. I'll wait here, and then we'll go home together to see mother, and as she tells me you're to have a holiday, Saturday to Monday night, you shall come home along o' me, and then we will just see what it's like to be a Fisher Boy."

Thomas Archer.