Arizona weekly citizen., 1884-11-29
The Travelling Type-Settel.

He walked silently in. We knew him
 the moment we raised our eyes and saw
 him standing there. In fact, we had been
 expecting him; he nearly always comes
 when We are in just such strait and
 needing him. He always wears the
 same style of clothes-coat of one kind
 and pants of another. he hasn't any vest.
 his shoes are worn and run down at the
 heels, and his hat IS battered and dusty.
 There are spots of ink about his shirt
 which hangs over his waiSt-band. and
 his new paper collar is the only fresh,
 white thing about him, and it looks as
 though he had just put it on with soiled
 fingers. He Is pale, weak-eyed and pre-
 maturely gray-haired; he looks as
 though he had never known regular
 hours. either for sleeping or eating. and
 he must have come thousands of miles
 and been coming ever since he was &
 boy. His starting point was so far away,
 and so long ago, that he has almost for gotten when or where it was; but we
 have an idea that it must have been
 when his mother buttOned his little blue shirt-band around his white. boyish
 throat, put on his little straw hat and sent him barefOoted to ask for place
 to work in the printing office. How proud he was when he went home that 6rst night and showed his new brass rule, and tells mother he has learned all the boxes and has free ticket to the circus next week. and the editor gave him big piece of wedding cake. part of which he had brought home for the baby, and if he sets up column in one day next week he can go fishing on Sat JUday. Yes, somewhere about there was the commencement of his long journey. and here he is now, perhaps twO-thirdS on the way. He asks us: Whats the show for sit9' We give him a case, and by and by he says he feels faint. and asks us if we can't lend him a quarter-he hain't had any break fast yet. We know his weakness, and. as We need his work, we go down with him and order some breakfast for him at the nearest restaurant. When he comes back he looks happier and better able to work. In the evening. when he goes to distributing his case, he re- counts the history of his late places of He knows the circulation and amount of business of every paper in the State, and just why the DiSpdtch and why the AdUdnee sold put to the Courier. Heis well acquaint- ad with the unknown editor of the and has friends on the ed .torial force of all the leading journals of the country. By-and-by he whistles low an air from an Italian opera, and in reply to q question answers with 8 Latin quotation. He stays with us a week, and we grow to like him moro and more every day; he has read every hing from Shakespeare and Ruskin to Mark Twain and Bill Arp; he knows more about our laws, national and State, Lhan the best lawyer in the city; he is we'll acquainted with the lives of every eminent person of the age, and is a per- feet encyclopaedia of current events, but we cannot afford to keep him any longer. SO pay him off and he again starts on his long road that leads-nOs 10 home. for he has none; not to ths society of intelligentpeople like himself Tor outside of the printing office he is un- known; may be back to night-work on some city daily. or if too worn and old for that, a rapid descent from one coun- try office to another. with whisky and Iaudanum for companions. to an un- marked grave by some lonely wayside. Palestine (TeJaS) AdCOcaks