Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1905-11-30

hole in the door, and after carefully
scrutinizing the visitor, unclaimed the
door and admitted Van Zant.
sThy name! Dost come as friend or
foe?"
III am friend, by name Van Zant."
Evan Zant is a Dutch name; dost
hail from Amsterdam or Leyden? Thou
art friend for the Dutch hate the
priesthood as the devil despiseth holy
water.n
eyes, my ancestors were Dutch and
| have called to pay my respects to the
father of printers, the inventor of NOV
able type
With one bound Gutenberg had Van
by the throat and half throttled.
"Speak, man, did Faust divulge my
secret to thee? If thou yaluest thy life
divulge thy informant. Knowest not
that one word to the priests and [ die
by fire or in donjon by slow torture?"
Now, Van did value his life and per-
ceived the blunder he had made, and
the beautiful thought came to him:
"Tis sweet to lie for those you love-"
And Van certainly admired himself.
"Nay, friend, had vision. Itseem-
ed lived in the early part of the TWEEN
tieth century. In every city in the
strange country in which l lived there
We're printing offices printing daily pa
pers and books. In these offices We're
tons and tons of small pieces of metal
and craven ON the end of each piece
was letter When assembled together
and placed on huge machines using
miles and miles of white paper there
issued faster than eight men could take
away, newspapers telling of all the do
ings of the world. l visited several
such offices and in each was a picture
on the wall with the name Gutenberg,
and in the larger cities We're statues of
Gutenberg beautifully craven from
marble, bronze and granite. asked
who he was and was answered The
inventor of type, the leaden messengers
of thought Hearing of a Gutenburg
in Mentz, / fastened to visit you. You
see Pm see-er, See?''
Gutenberg released his hold and gaZ-
ed in awe on Van, for those We're the
days in which the witch and wizard
were believed in, and the subtle flattery
of future fame was pleasing to him.
| AT this moment roll upon roll of pro-
life, profound, profuse profanity emil
mated from back room hardly larger
than closet, and by the fluent and eX-
was the master printer who gave them
uttelance.
Gutenberg and Van went into the
composing room to see what was the
matter.
| Seated on stool was tail man in
dustriously whiting the tail off of Il
"jn to make an "iu out of it.
'"Friend Guilliam why this unseemly
blasphemy" inquired Gutenberg.
'Somc blankety- blank and back again
dish-washing, hoor-scrubbing, kettle
wrestling kitchen-mechanic with less
brains than Il consumptive red ant has
turned poet and sent in that moss
grown, magot-eaten poem on the death
of Margrietjen kloppenheimer that
gets its first breath thusly: Darling
Margrietjen thou hast left us, and L
| havn't a lower case i left in the box.
| Whatnell / do with it?n
After bordering moment Guten-
burg observed that they had better lay
it over till next week and they could
change the one they We're running this
week on the death of Aletta Won Boom
gsert by simply inserting the name of
Margrietjen for Aletta and changing
the name of the author.
This was sad blow to Van for here
in the days of Gutenberg, nearly six
hundred years back, the poem was still
considered of ancient origin, and he
must go back.
To relieve the mind of the great in
ventor Van took the oath of secrecy
and was ushered into the streets of the
old town of Mentz, through which he
strolled, wondering in what direction
to make his next research, when the
thought struck him that the author of
the Iliad and Odyssey-the immortal
Homer, could give him light. Sum
moning Harmonious he asked to be
ushered into Ancient Greece in the
year S55 b. G.
(To be continued)