How The Old Printer Passed Away

And so, year af ter year, lie liad wrought among the boys on a mornlng paper. He went to bed about the time the rest of the world got up, and he aróse bout the time the rest of the world s:it down to dineer. }Ie worked by every kind of llght exoept ¦uiillzht. There were candles in the office when he came in; tbeo tliey had lard-oil lamps, that smoked and sputtei'cd andsmelled; then he saw Uvo or three printers bllnded by explo.sions of Camphlüe and spirit-gas; tlieu kerosene carne in, and heated up the newsroom on ¦walker 11 iirlits like a fnrnnce; then tlie office put in the gas; and now the electric liglit Bwuug t'nmi the et Jlinjr and dazzled his old eyes, and glared into them trom his eopy. If he sang on his way home, a policeman bade him "cheese that," and remindcd him that he was disturbing the peace and people wanted to sleep. But when he wanted to sleep, the rest of the world, tor wliom he sat up all night to make a raoroing paper, passed and cruslied down by the noisy street uuder his window with cirt and truck and omnibus; blared with brass bands, ground hand organs, talked and shouted, and even the shrleking newsboys, with a ghastly sarcasm, murdered the sleep of the tired old printer by yelling the name of his own t:iper. Year after year the forera an roared at hm to remember that this wasn't an atlernoon paper; editors shrieked down the tube to have a blind man put on the dead man'scase; the smart young, pxoofreader would scribble sarcastic comments on his work on the margin of the proof slips, if thev didu't, knnw how to re.ad loiig-winded correspondent, learning to write, and long-haired poets who could never learn to spell, wrathtully cast all their Imperfections upon his head. But through it all he wrougut patieutly and found more sunshine than shadow in the world; he had more friends than eneniies. Printers and forenian, and pressman anl reporters cume and went, but he staycd. and he saw news room and sanctum tillcd and emptied and filled and emptled again with new, st range faces. He believed In his craft, and to the end he liad a sili-nt pity, that i:ame as near being contempt as hissrood, forglviogold heart could fecl, for an editor who had not worked his way from a regular devilship up past the cases and imposing-stone. He worked all thaf uight, and when the hours that are so short in the ballroom and so long in the cornposing-room drew wearily on, he was tired. He had not thrown in a very full case, ha Hád, and he had to climti clear into the boxes ;iml cliase u type up into a corner betbrc he could get hold of it. One of the boys lired as himself - but a printer is never too tired to be nood natuied - offered to change places with him, but the old man said there was cnough in the case to last hiin through this take, and he wouldu't uork any more to-night. The types clicked in the silent room, and by any by the old man suid : "I'm out of ports." And he sat down on the low windowsill by his case, with his stick in his hand his hands folded wearily in his lap. The types clicked on. A galley of telegraph waited. "What gentleman is lingering with D 13?" called out the forman who was always dangerously polished and polite when he was on the point of explodinj; with wrath and impatieuce. Hing nine, who was passing by the alley, stopped to ppeak to the old man setting there so quietly. The telegraph boy came running in with the last manifold sheet, shouting: They carried the old man to tlie foreman's long table, and laid him down reverently and covered his face. They took his stick out of hls hand and read his last take : "Boston, November '83.- The American bark l'ilfirim went to pieces off Marblehead m n Kale about mid-night. Öhe was old and unseaworthy, and tliis was