you play at cup and ball with me? look what a pretty ivory cup and ball mamma has given me. I thought of it several times while you were talking of glass, but I would not interrupt you. Now let us have a trial on the spike. Which will catch it the oftenest? Will you spin the ball for me?"

"What is the use of spinning it?"

A question easily asked-very difficult to an

swer

103

PRINTING-PRESS.

"MAMMA, I am sorry that you could not go with us to see the printing-press to day, for it was very entertaining. And look," said Lucy, "I am not covered with printer's ink, as you said I should be."

"If

you

did not take care, my dear, I said. Did not I?"

66

Yes, mamma; but I did take care, you see, for I have not a single spot, and yet I saw everything perfectly. Mamma, you have seen printing so often, I suppose, that it would be tiresome to describe it to you. And I shall only tell you, that it was done almost exactly as is explained in our ← Book of Trades,' in the chapter of The Printer. Do you remember my reading it to you, mamma? and the picture of the letter-press printer? And at the end it was said, that, after reading this, young people should endeavour to go through a printing-office. I asked you directly, mamma, to take me to see one, and you said that you could not then, but that you would some time or other; and now the some time or other, which I thought never would arrive, has come to-day. I saw the

letters, or the types, all in their square divisions in their cases, which lay sloping within reach of the compositor, who, with his composing stick in his hand, picked out the letters, and placed them in the form. Then another man inked their faces, with a black puff-ball, and afterwards the wet paper was pressed down on them. I knew and understood almost everything he was going to do, mamma, from recollecting the description. This was very pleasant. There was one thing, though, which I had mistaken; when I took up one of the types, I saw that the letter stands out from the face of the metal, it projects: now I had always fancied that the letters were hollowed out, cut into the types, as the letters for instance of your name, mamma, are cut into this seal."

"How could you think so, Lucy?" said Harry; you know that would be engraving; that is the way engravings are made."

"Yes, now I recollect, I know that is the way engraving is done, but I thought in printing books it was the same; and I know now what led me into the mistake, it was our little ivory letters, which we put together so as to form words; they are all cut into the ivory, and filled up with ink."

"But does not your Book of Trades,' Lucy, describe how the letters are made?" said her mother.

“No, mamma, not that I recollect," said Lucy.

"I dare say the author supposed every body must know it, but I did not."

"That is my fault, I am afraid," said her mother.

"Not yours, mamma, but the fault of the man, the author of the Book of Trades,' if it is any body's fault. But, indeed, it must be very difficult for great grown-up old authors to recollect the time when they did not know every thing or any thing themselves, and very tiresome to them to explain every little particular from the very beginning. It must be difficult too for wise authors to guess or conceive the odd sort of little foolish mistakes that children make."

Harry waited till Lucy had done speaking, and then told her, that the manner in which letters are made is described in the "Book of Trades," under the head Type-founder..

"Is it indeed?" said Lucy; "then I read very carelessly. But I remember the calico printer perfectly well, and how his types, or his blocks and patterns, are made. I know the pattern is first drawn on the block of wood, a leaf and flower for instance, such as there is on this curtain then with a very sharp knife, or a little chisel, they cut away the wood all round the pattern, and between every part of it, so as to leave it standing up and standing out.”

"In relief," said her mother.

"Then they rub colours on this pattern," said Lucy.

"As the other printer rubs ink on his types,' said Harry.

"And the calico printer stamps it down on the calico."

"Just as the letter-press printer did the paper on the types," said Harry.

"How comes it, Lucy," said her mother, “that you remember so accurately all this calico printer's business?"

Oh, mamma! for an excellent reason, which Harry knows. Do not you, Harry?"

"I do," said Harry, smiling.

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Mamma, Harry was a calico printer once, and printed a blue starred gown for my doll," said Lucy.

"And a pretty blotted, blurred gown it was," said Harry.

I liked it the best of all her gowns, and SO did she," said Lucy. "And we were so happy doing it, mamma, except when Harry cut his finger hacking at the block," added Lucy, shrinking at the recollection.

"What signified a cut?" said Harry; "but I broke the point of my knife, and that was the reason the star was but a botch at last."

"The worst of it was," said Lucy," that the stars all came out the first time it was washed.

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