the test in this way. We set up
a lot of random letters in a stick--three-fourths of a line; then filled
out the line with quads representing 14 spaces, each space to be 35/1000
of an inch thick. Then we threw aside the quads and put the letters into
the machine and formed them into 15 two-letter words, leaving the words
separated by two-inch vacancies. Then we started up the machine slowly,
by hand, and fastened our eyes on the space-selecting pins. The first
pin-block projected its third pin as the first word came traveling along
the race-way; second block did the same; but the third block projected
its second pin!

"Oh, hell! stop the machine--something wrong--it's going to set a
30/1000 space!"

General consternation. "A foreign substance has got into the spacing
plates." This from the head mathematician.

"Yes, that is the trouble," assented the foreman.

Paige examined. "No--look in, and you can see that there's nothing of
the kind." Further examination. "Now I know what it is--what it must be:
one of those plates projects and binds. It's too bad--the first test is
a failure." A pause. "Well, boys, no use to cry. Get to work--take the
machine down.--No--Hold on! don't touch a thing! Go right ahead! We are
fools, the machine isn't. The machine knows what it's about. There is
a speck of dirt on one of those types, and the machine is putting in a
thinner space to allow for it!"

That was just it. The machine went right ahead, spaced the line,
justified it to a hair, and shoved it into the galley complete and
perfect! We took it out and examined it with a glass. You could not tell
by your eye that the third space was thinner than the others, but the
glass and the calipers showed the difference. Paige had always said
that the machine would measure invisible particles of dirt and allow for
them, but even he had forgotten that vast fact for the moment.

All the witnesses made written record of the immense historical
birth--the first justification of a line of movable type by
machinery--and also set down the hour and the minute. Nobody had
drank anything, and yet everybody seemed drunk. Well-dizzy, stupefied,
stunned.

All the other wonderful inventions of the human brain sink pretty
nearly into commonplace contrasted with this awful mechanical miracle.
Telephones, telegraphs, locomotives, cotton gins, sewing machines,
Babbage calculators, jacquard looms, perfecting presses, Arkwright's
frames--all mere toys, sim