ding-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