THE MICRO-AXIALLY CONDENSED TYPEWRITER!
“Well,” the girl replied, a bit bewilderedly, “Rudolph is—as I would imagine the word ‘typewritographic’ would indicate—a man specializing in making typewriters do things which typewriters weren’t originally designed to do! For instance: He was the first to create a typewriter that could, by some powerful arrangement of levers, impress Braille letters into a mat. So that, you see, Boyd, one blind man could write another—or even write a book, so far as that goes. He also invented the letter-counter by which typists get paid by the so-many-thousands of actual individual letters they impress in a day—”
“Including, of course,” Boyd Arganbright asked quizzically, “all the ones they have to erase and type over?”
“Excluding them,” the girl said quietly, “and, still worse, penalizing the typist by 10 letters! a fact. For the device subtracted 10 letters from the total count every time the carriage went backward—unless, that is, it went clear back and came forward again notch by notch.” She paused. “His brother said that many business firms in Germany incorporated the device on their machines not to penalize their typists so much as to make them careful.” She paused again. “Rudolph von Schussmock, it seems, also created the so-called Universal typewriter which can be used to write a document in any language—and was the expert, moreover, who was given the task of putting the new Mandarin Chinese, containing considerable hundreds of hieroglyphs, on a machine that could typewrite them. Because there were so many hundreds, and because the lever rack was limited, he solved the problem—at least so his brother says—by reducing the hieroglyphs to elements—such as vertical or horizontal strokes—and so forth—and creating just enough keys that could create, in not more than two impressions, any hieroglyph.”
“‘Blessed be the man,’” quoted Boyd Arganbright, “‘who has found his meat’—I mean ‘his work’! I wouldn’t be surprised now if you told me that Rudy was the creator of the typewriter which operates 20 receiving typewriters as it writes—and creates 20 original letters?”
“Precisely,” said the girl calmly. “That’s one of his, too. Oh, it seems that in his tiny shop in Unter den Linden he’s created hundreds of modifications of the typewriter—for clients all over the world.”
“Then I made a mistake,” laughed Arganbright, “in saying the typewriter was his meat. It evidently is his soul. But tell me some more? What other furtherances to man’s progress typewritographical has Rudolph created?”
“Well, here’s one,” the girl smiled, “that might better be said to be but one more defeat of man’s inhumanity to man! For one of his inventions was created for an American typewriter company—but for use, only, in one of our half-hundred or so states. For it seems, Boyd, that there was—or was, at least, at the time he invented the machine—a law in that particular state that the county-recorders in all counties must record all documents by typewriter transcription—checked, of course—on the actual detachable numbered page of their records book—in letters no less than 12 points in height, if you know what that means—6 lines to the vertical inch?—yes—and that no document could occupy more than one page. And—”
“Why oh why sich a law?” he asked helplessly.
“Why? Why, because there was a bitter feud on in the State Legislature against the lawyers of the state—who had passed some sort of caustic resolution reflecting on all the legislators. So the legislature passed a law that legal services, involving documents, could be charged for only on the basis of the number of words in any document involved—and then proceeded to limit the possible words hopelessly by limiting the size of the county-recorders’ ledger page—specifying transcription in typewriter type 12 points high and no photostating—and so forth.” She paused. “But the recorders, who got so much per word, were the lawyers; and they put their problem up to a local typewriter company who in turn put it up to Rudolph von Schussmock in Berlin who had done so much along special typewriting improvements. And he created a typewriter of which, Boyd, inside of a month, there was one in every county in that state, and made it possible to record, on one ledger page, the most gigantic paper ever conceived. It typed, in short, in micro-axially condensed letters!’
“That word, of course,” he commented, “is self-explanatory. The letters, I take it, were condensed along one axis only?—the one at right angles to their own heights?”
“Yes. That’s right. Which maintained the 12-point height prescribed by law. Widthways, the letter was—well—almost microscopic, as you might call it. In brief, each time the key-lever or space-lever was struck, the carriage moved, not a 10th of an inch as it does now, but only a 40th of an inch. With the result that an average word, in those letters, occupied only about a quarter of an inch widthways.”
“But how,” he asked, “was the resultant writing supposed to be read? Magnified, of course. And which must have still given the letters a plenty scrooey appearance?”
“No,” she retorted, as one fresh from interesting discussions over her own table of the von Schussmockian family triumphs. “The resultant writing was read by a powerful cylindrically ground lens—a lens, Boyd, whose surface was a cylinder instead of a sphere. And would refract the letters only along their own condensed axes—and not up and down as to their heights, see?”
“Yes,” he nodded, “I do see. And darned clever too, I’ll admit. The whole stunt. I’ll wager the writing, however, when viewed with the naked eye, looked plenty funny?”
“I saw a bit of it,” the girl replied. “A piece which Gustav von Schussmock had. At reading distance from the eyes, Boyd, it looks like a lot of tiny parallel ticktacks—like someone keeping meticulous count of something. But the moment you apply the special lens—they draw right out left and right like—”
“—accordions,” he laughed. But his laugh faded. “However, the sad point just now at issue is not Rudolph—inventor of aberrant typewriting mechanisms—and machines for helping lawyers and recorders to outwit legislatures—but Gustav, chemist, whom, as your father says, might as well have the plant Chief Chemistship—since your father can’t hand the same to me as any wedding gift—when I’m already married! Your father’s no doubt impressed with him—foreign degrees and all that. The real difference between Gustav von Schussmock and me—the difference that really counts—is that I know that confounded plant over there—” And Boyd Arganbright waved a hand toward that huge plant which was not visible at this part of town. “—every square foot therein. Though—my God—I should!—since I started in there as a plant-runner—at $2 a week—with my bare feet kicking up the same dust that my knee-length boots kicked up tonight, just outside of the Open Hearth Furnace.”
A silence fell on them.
“Well—” It was he who broke it. “—it looks as though I need a divorce from Sadie—and soon!—to get a job—and to get the girl I love. And—and I do sure love you, ‘Lyda darlin’.”
“And I you, Boyd.”
Instantly they were in each other’s arms, these two who were barred by a small matter of a legally consummated marriage. Her soft cheek was against his own; her lips were soft—warm—fragrant. How different—how different, he groaned—she was from the coarse Sadie who had grown up with him. Who always stank with violent perfume. “Infra-ethers,” he termed Sadie’s perfume—being, of course, a chemist! “Infra—” Oh, damn Sadie—mercenary little gold-digger! Because of her airy-fairy little demand of just and only $25,000, he couldn’t have this girl who was worth $250,000—$2,500,000—$25,000,000—at this point he ran out of mental zeros!
He released Alyda Westover at last.
“Well, unless,” he said grimly, “I find an answer to having you—I’ve got to leave Irontown. Not that von Schussmock—Chief Chemist, as it’s apparent he’ll be—will need me; for he won’t! The plant went on before me—and will go on long after me. But I’ve got to leave it if I don’t find the answer to—to you and me. And—the answer? Well, for the present—well, for the present—well, for the present all I can do is to think. Yes, that’s all I can do.”
“I’m afraid so,” said the girl sadly. “Because I don’t know the answer—I simply don’t. But will you ring me—say—tomorrow evening? When I’ll be home—from the convent?”
“Ring—you?” he repeated, catching a sinister suggestion in that request.
“Yes, Boyd. Ring me only. For from tomorrow on I shan’t be able to see you in person—a fact, Boyd; Father has laid down the law on that, and I know that from tomorrow on I’ll be watched by a couple of men from his staff of investigators—and I’ll need your ring more than ever before. May I count on it?”
“Of course.” His voice was lifeless. He knew, however, that her father was right. For this thing couldn’t go on—she—being mixed up—with a married man. No! For—but she was speaking.
“Good night, Boyd. The—the answer to all this is, I’m afraid, up to—”
“I know!”
He held her in his arms once more. And released her. And climbed out into the quiet night. And stood off from the curb. And watched her, sadness and pain written on her delicate features, drive off.
And up into the house he went.