out a cent that the _Herald_ hasn't actually earned. What wages do you
want?"

"Three dollars a day when I'm workin'," the journeyman printer replied,
"an' the good green grass to sleep on and a hunk of corn-bread to eat
when I'm not."

The young editor looked at the journeyman printer with a sudden
eagerness.

"I've got four dollars and a half saved up," he said, "that's a day and
a half's wages. Will you teach me all about printing in a day and a
half? That isn't office money, that's my own, but, you see, it's for
me."

"I'll teach ye for nothin'," said the Irishman, pleased at the boy's
pluck, "if ye'll give me a bite to eat an' a place to sleep."

Fred shook his head.

"No," he said, "Mr. Levin won't let any of us boys take something for
nothing. I'd sooner pay. It would be great if you could get out this
week's number for us, and let me see how you do it. I'd learn a heap
that way, and it would be just the stuff I want to know. Then the number
you got out we could use for something to go by. But you'll have to do
it in a day and a half, because that's all the money I've got. Can
you?"

"I can that," the printer answered, "an' I'll pay for my board out of
it, so that you won't be spending all your money."

"Can't do that either," said the boy, "because that would make it
Anton's Dad's money, not mine. If you want to pay him, all right."

The Irishman stripped off his coat and rolled up his sleeves.

"I'll be lookin' to see what fonts o' type ye have in the shop," he
declared, and examined the forms which were lying on the rough table.

"Did anny one ever show you annything about printin'?" he asked
presently.

"No," said the boy, "I got this printing-press from a chap whose brother
used to run it. The fellow who owned it was going to show me how it
worked, but he went away and hasn't come back."

"Watch me a while," the journeyman responded and began to unlock the
forms that had stood since the issue of the week before. It was a
revelation to the boy to see how the trained fingers of the printer
sorted, classified, and arranged the type. Talking steadily, in his
Irish fashion, the journeyman explained how the type should be set up,
showed that they had been using twice as much ink as necessary, warned
them against pinching the type too closely, explaining that this "put
the letters off their feet," and, by altering the arrangement of the
sheet, improved its appearance a thousandfold. These routine