The Good Teacher

"Hello, my name is Furion, and I will be walking you through the function of the Gutenberg Printing Press by Verum Trading Company, an affiliate of the True World Sect," The plump boy spoke with a practised cadence. "Before we begin using this machine, it is important that we intimate ourselves with the different parts and the names assigned to them. While I shall point at and reiterate their names in the beginning, when we progress well in the demonstration I will revert to using their assigned names."

"There are two main moving components of the Press, that are the Carriage and the Platen," as Furion listed their names he pointed at the vertical section of the press and then nudged the horizontal bed back and forth. Following that he started to point at different sections on the machine and listed off their names, "This is the spindle, which rotates as you move the bar. You can see the platen moving up and down as such ...."

"This component here is the tympan and the frisket. The paper gets loaded and affixed here." Once each and every relevant component of the press was named and explained, Furion retrieved a roll of paper from one of the nearby containers and unfurled it. "For future reference, you can use this diagram."

"Now I can see the scepticism in all of your faces, as you wonder how this machine could be used to produce a book. Therefore, to ease your anxiousness, I shall perform a sample demonstration."

The boy reached into his bag and retrieved a rectangular tablet. "This is a single typeset page. As you can see here, we have a frame which holds these movable types."

Furion brought the tablet closer and allowed the three scribes and Rove to inspect it. "This looks wrong! Why are the letters all mirrored?" Rove accused.

"It will all become clear in due time. But before that, I would like you to inspect these metal types and the frame carefully. You have been provided with a standard set of types and frames, as well as signature blocks with photos and basic diagrams. Before I leave, I shall distribute the types and tools from the storage container into the type case next to you," the boy said while pointing at the storage mechanism.

"This frame is placed within the moving carriage as follows. Once it is positioned, make sure to nudge the frame on the side to see if the types are moving about," the boy seamlessly slid the frame onto the bed on the carriage and tapped the frame from the side causing some of the letters to jitter. "If this is the case, you may need to add additional blocks into the frame," the boy retrieved a thin metal block from his bag and slid it into a small opening in the final line of the frame.

"The next step after the typeset frame is positioned is to apply the ink," the boy declared while opening a bucket next to the shallow reservoir and pouring a cup of slightly-viscous black ink into it carefully. "Note that the ink in this reservoir can be siphoned off from the bottom through a tap. Do not leave ink in this reservoir overnight, since once it hardens it can be difficult to clean. Should that happen, a replacement reservoir can be purchased for a subsidised rate as long as you return the inked reservoir."

"Your purchase of the Press comes with a set of custom-made goose skin coating cloth and a roll of horse hair. You simply stuff a few handfuls of horse hair into this bowl with a handle attached underneath, cover it with the goose skin, fasten it on the hooks at the side of the bowl, and you have a prepped bob," Furion presented a tool that looked like a large stamp but with a soft base. "You gently dab the bob into the reservoir and move it in a simple roll and dab motion to spread the ink evenly," Furion kneaded the bob over the ink in a circular and up-and-down motion.

"Once the bob is sufficiently coated with ink - you can confirm this by holding the bob flat above the reservoir until there is no ink dripping off of it - you can now transfer this ink on the typeset frame as follows," Furion repeated the kneading action on top of the frame place in the moving carriage until all the letters were dabbed with an even coat of ink. "The ink needs to be spread evenly, but not excessively, otherwise it will bleed through the paper."

"We now position the paper in the tympan and lower the frisket," Furion instructed while slotting the paper into the frame stations at an incline by the carriage. After folding the frisket into the inclined plane, he then folded the incline over the carriage, causing the paper to meet the typeset frames.

"Now comes the fun part," the boy declared with a mischievous smile. "We simply move the carriage forward until it is positioned perfectly underneath the platen. Once we make sure that the carriage and the platen are aligned perfectly-" he gestured at a few standoffs indicating the alignment, "-we rotate the handle here, bringing the platen onto the carriage. Do not apply too much pressure, when you start feeling resistance, stop. Hold. And then reverse."

The platen was raised, and the boy raised the tympan slowly, with a dramatic flair.

"TA-DA!" The boy exclaimed as he graciously raised the frisket and pulled out the paper held within.

"My goodness!" One of the scribes blurted out as he held the paper in his hand.

"I-It wrote a whole page in one go?"

"This is amazing!"

Rove's eyes sparkled as he saw this, but he held back his emotions lest the boy takes advantage of him... again.

"Why don't you three try this out yourself?" The boy suggested while pulling out a few more sheets of paper and gesturing for the scribes to approach the mechanism. "Start by priming the bob with ink and layering it on the typeset frame."

As the scribes tried to follow the instructions, the boy paused and helped correct any mistakes as they arose.

"...that's too much ink. See here, it's dripping..."

"...do not rotate the handle beyond the first sign of opposition. If you push excessively, you may end up tearing the paper..."

"...this smudge occurred because the application of ink was uneven. Keep an eye out for this the next time..."

After his three scribes had a go printing four sheets each, the boy looked directly at Rove and said, "We wrote twelve sheets of similar text with the same quality within just four minutes. This is when these guys are still learning how to work this machine. How long does it usually take for you two to transcribe a page of this size?"

One of the scribes answered, "It takes us two minutes to write a page with this much text. Well... since the type is so small - yet readable - there are much more words within one page, so I guess it might take us longer to write it out..."

Furion didn't have to say another word for Rove to grasp the underlying message of the gaze the boy sent his way. Rove could feel the smugness eking out of the boy's eyes, although the kid tried his best to present a professional and well-meaning smile.

"Before printing, we need to first prep the typesetting frame with the page that we want to print," the boy continued. "What I made you work with is a pre-prepped frame. I will now show you how to typeset your page."

The boy moved over to the type case and started to pour in the metal blocks from the storage boxes nearby. "One of the harder parts of typesetting is being able to read the text while it is mirrored. As you saw earlier, a typeset page is basically the mirrored version of the final output. Thankfully, all of you are literate so it shouldn't take you much time to grow accustomed to it."

"Typesetting is the process of composing the page to be printed. Usually, when you transcribe texts by hand, you follow a basic set of conventions to ensure that the text is readable and standardised. This may be by establishing standard margins, fixing the number of words per page, setting a standard size for the text, and so on. These concepts can also be translated for printing with the Gutenberg Press. If you observe the page we printed earlier, you will see that the text in each line is evenly spaced out ensuring that the entire page appears like a uniform block. This is called justified alignment of text. We do this by adding spacing blocks between text. As novice typesetters, you don't have to preoccupy yourselves with this for the time being, but I suggest that you start experimenting with this as soon as possible to raise the quality of your output," Furion suggested. He pulled out a draw and revealed a peculiar metal tool.

"This is called a composing stick. You can build your page using this device. You will notice that it is preset to a certain text width which matches most published book sizes with your model of the Gutenberg Press. Once you grow proficient, I suggest that you experiment with this by loosening and sliding the fixture on the side," the boy said while pointing at a knob.

"For practice, we will be typesetting the same page that you printed earlier. I will set up the first line, I want you people to try setting the subsequent lines, okay?" The boy instructed while proficiently dipping his hands into cubbies, pulling out metal blocks and sliding them into place.

"... You can utilise blank blocks to add line-spaces, paragraph breaks, and other such conventions..."

As the scribes each tried their hand at setting a line, the boy would intervene and provide an explanation.

"... You are using a different font size. Font size refers to the standard text sizes you can work with. This letter is size 12 and this is size 14. We use an internal metric of measurement to design these font sizes..."

"... The text is backwards. When you print this line, you will see that it isn't written in the correct order. Fix it..."

"Since we have finished setting this page, it is now a matter of sliding this into the frame. You are provided with a standard frame with a preset 1 flange-width margin," the boy said while raising a finger and pressing his thumb against the first flange segment from the tip of the extended finger. "Again, once you are familiar, you can try your hand with the blank frame provided."

The boy slid the typeset blocks into the frame and jiggled it to see if things were snug. Once done, he moved to the Printing Press and removed the existing frame.