Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1891-10-14
THE OLD PRINTER.
One of the Most Pathetic Sketches Ever
Written by Bob Burdette.


Written by Bob Burdette.
And SO, year after year, he wrought
among the boys on morning paper.
He went to bed about the time the rest
of the world gotup, and he arose about
the time the rest of the world sat down
to dinner. He worked by every kind
of light except sunlight. There were
candles in the office when he came in;
then they had lard-oil lamps that
smoked and sputtered and smelled /;
then he saw two or three printers
blinded by explosions of camphene and
spirit gas; then kerosene came in and
heated up the news-rOOms on summer
nights like a furnace; then the office put
in gas, and now the electric light swung
from the ceiling and dazzled his old
eyes and glared into them from his
copy. If he sang on his way home a
policeman babe him "cheese that" and
reminded him that he was disturbing
the peace and people wanted to sleep.
But when ne wanted to sleep the rest of
the world. for whom he has sat up all
night to make morning paper, roared
and crashed by down the noisy streets
under his window, with cart and truck
and omnibus; blared out with brass
bands, howled with hand-organs, talked
and shouted; and even the shrieking
newsbOys, with a CHASTITY sarcasm,
murdered the sleep of the tired old
printer by yelling the name of his own
paper.
Year after year the foreman roared
at him to remember that this was not
an afternoon paper, editors shrieked
down the tube to have blind man put on
that dead mans case smart young proof
readers scrubbed sarcastic comments
on his work on the margins of his proof
slips they didn't know now to read
long-winded correspondents learning to
write, and long-haired poets who could
never learn to spell, wrathfully cast all
their imperfections upon his head. But
through it all he wrought patiently, and
found more sunshine than shadow in
the world; he had more friends than
enemies. Printers and foremen and
pressmen and reporters and editors
saw newspapers and sanctum filled and
emptied again and filled with new,
strange faces. He believed in his craft,
and to the end he had silent pity,
that came as near being contempt as his
good, forgiving old heart could feel, for
an editor who had not worked his way
from a regular devilship up past the
cases and the imposing stone.
He worked all that night, and when
the hours that are so short in the ball
room and SO long in the composing-room
drew YEARLY on, he was tired. He
hadn't thrown in very full case, he
said, and he had to climb clear into the
boxes and chase the type up into cor
ner before he could get hold of it. One
of the boys, tired as himself--but a
+o0 70 h. j
natured-offeredt to change places with
him. but the old man said there was
enough in the case to last him through
his take, and he wouldn't work any
more tonight. The type clicked in the
silent room, and by and by the old man
said:
''I'm out Of Sorts
And he sat on the low window sill by
his case, with his stick N his hand, his
hands folded YEARLY in his lap. The
type clicked YEARLY on. A galley of
telegraph waited.
'What gentleman is lingering with Is
D?" called the foreman, who was dan
gerously polished and polite when he
was GA the point of exploding with
wrath and Importance.
Slug nine, passing by the alley, stopped
to speak to the old man sitting there so
quietly.
The telegraph boy came running in
with the last manifold sheet, shout
ing:
"Thirty %
They carried the old man to the fore
mans long table and laid him down rev.
erently and covered his face. They
took the stick out Of his nerveless
hand, and read his last take:
Boston, Nov. 23.-The American barque
Pilgrim went to pieces off Marblehead in
a light gale about midnight She was old
and unseaworthy, and this was to have
been her last trip.