ly breakfast was finished, then Bobby took his printing press
upstairs and installed it on his little table. He would have liked very
much to show Celia his gifts, but this Mrs. Orde peremptorily forbade.

After some manipulation he loosened the chase and laid it on the table.
Then he began to pick out the necessary type and arrange it in the upper
grove to spell his father's name. The replacement of the chase was easy
after his experience in taking it out. Ink he smeared on the top plate,
according to directions, rolling it back and forth with the composition
roller until it was evenly distributed. Nothing remained now but to
adjust the guides which would hold the cards on the tympan. Bobby
passed the inked roller evenly back and forth across the face of the
type, inserted a card and bore down confidently on the lever. He
contemplated this result:

[Illustration]

Besides the transpositions and inversions, the impression itself was
blurred and imperfect and smeared with ink.

After the first gasp of dismay, Bobby set to work in the dogged
analytical mood which difficulties already aroused in him. The remedy
for the inversion was plain enough. Bobby changed the type end for end
and turned the R and the E right side up, but he worked slower and
slower and his brow was wrinkled. Suddenly it cleared.

"Oh, I know!" said he aloud. "It's just like the looking-glass!"

Satisfied on this point, he finished the resetting quickly and tried
again. This time the name read correctly but it slanted down the card
and was blurred and inky. Bobby fussed for a long time to get the line
straight. Experiment seemed only to approximate. One end persisted in
rising too high or sinking too low. The problem was absorbing and all
the time Bobby was thinking busily along, to him, original lines. At
last, by means of a strip of paper and a pencil he measured equidistants
from top and bottom of the platen, adjusted the guides in accordance and
so that problem was solved. Bobby, flushed and triumphant, addressed
himself to remedying the blurring.

"Too much ink," said he.

Obviously the way to remedy too much ink was to rub some of it off and
the directest means to that end was the ever-useful pocket handkerchief.
The paste proved very sticky and the handkerchief was effective only at
the expense of great labour. Bobby ruined three more cards before he
established the principle that superfluous ink must be removed not only
from the plate