over the shoulders of boys who stood working on page forms at the composing table or hand-setting type for the larger headlines. Only one or two of them were members of the
Chronicle
staff; theothers, mostly younger, were kids who’d drawn the printshop as their community-service assignment. Their talk bristled with terms of the printing trade – “stick,” “quoine,” “slug,” “furniture,” “carding-out” – as if in an effort to convince themselves they were really journeymen printers and not schoolboys at all.
“Hey, I need more furniture,” one of them said one afternoon.
“Need more what?” Haskell inquired.
“Furniture.”
“What’s that?”
And wholly unaware that he was being kidded, speaking as patiently as if Haskell were an apprentice in the shop, the boy explained what “furniture” was, while Haskell listened and nodded with a straight face. Afterwards, Haskell ventured a conspiratorial wink at Mr. Gold, who had heard it all, and Mr. Gold allowed himself a qualified smile as he bent over his own part of the job again.
Mr. Gold despised all Dorset boys on principle – rich, spoiled little snot-noses – but he had to admit that this particular fellow, this Haskell, was kind of an interesting kid. He was smart, witty, and very well-read for his age; last fall the two of them had hung around the shop for half an hour after quitting time one day, talking politics, and Haskell had displayed a surprisingly sound grasp of Marxist theory. But when Mr. Gold tried to tell his wife about it that night, in the kitchen of their home in Unionville, she didn’t want to listen. “ ‘Interesting’?” she repeated. “You’re telling me ‘interesting’ and ‘sophisticated’ about some fifteen-year-old
prep
school kid? Come on. I think you’re going soft in the head, Sidney.” And he guessed she was right; he had probably been taken in. Besides, there were unattractive things about Haskell too: the supercilious manner, the theatrical way he talked and moved around.
If Haskell could be theatrical in the printshop, he was worse in the
Chronicle
office. And he spent as much time as he could in the office, far more time than was necessary.
“And do you realize?” he demanded of Hugh Britt one evening, pacing the floor for emphasis, “Do you realize I’ve written the last four editorials for him?
And
made up the staff assignments.
And
edited all the copy, not to mention writing most of it. He sits up there wrapping friction tape around his hockey stick, or rubbing neat’s-foot oil into his baseball glove, and saying he’s too busy. Too busy. Well, it’s got to stop, that’s all. It’s got to stop.”
“Why don’t you lay it on the line with him, John?” Hugh Britt said. “Tell him if you’re going to do the editor’s work you want to
be
the editor.”
Haskell hadn’t expected such a clear-cut suggestion. After a moment, smiling vaguely as he paced, he said “Ah, yes, Hughie; if only it were that simple.”
The office was in an upstairs section of Four building, well away from the kitchen help’s quarters, and it looked as much like a real newspaper office as Haskell could make it. There were two paper-strewn typewriter desks, and there was a hotplate and a coffee percolator with several chipped mugs. Haskell drank more coffee than he wanted, especially on deadline days; often, when the door was locked and the windows open, he and Britt smoked cigarettes here too.
Haskell took up a slumped, staring posture at the windows, his homely features set in the look of someone for whom one crisis is never enough. “And on top of everything else,” he said, “we now have
Grove
to contend with.”
“I don’t know why you say ‘contend,’ John.”
“Because he’ll be around our necks, that’s why. We’ll be contending with his funny face and his dirty clothes and hisawful fingernails, and we’ll spend all our time just keeping him
down
. He was up here sucking around
Chronicle
staff; theothers, mostly younger, were kids who’d drawn the printshop as their community-service assignment. Their talk bristled with terms of the printing trade – “stick,” “quoine,” “slug,” “furniture,” “carding-out” – as if in an effort to convince themselves they were really journeymen printers and not schoolboys at all.
“Hey, I need more furniture,” one of them said one afternoon.
“Need more what?” Haskell inquired.
“Furniture.”
“What’s that?”
And wholly unaware that he was being kidded, speaking as patiently as if Haskell were an apprentice in the shop, the boy explained what “furniture” was, while Haskell listened and nodded with a straight face. Afterwards, Haskell ventured a conspiratorial wink at Mr. Gold, who had heard it all, and Mr. Gold allowed himself a qualified smile as he bent over his own part of the job again.
Mr. Gold despised all Dorset boys on principle – rich, spoiled little snot-noses – but he had to admit that this particular fellow, this Haskell, was kind of an interesting kid. He was smart, witty, and very well-read for his age; last fall the two of them had hung around the shop for half an hour after quitting time one day, talking politics, and Haskell had displayed a surprisingly sound grasp of Marxist theory. But when Mr. Gold tried to tell his wife about it that night, in the kitchen of their home in Unionville, she didn’t want to listen. “ ‘Interesting’?” she repeated. “You’re telling me ‘interesting’ and ‘sophisticated’ about some fifteen-year-old
prep
school kid? Come on. I think you’re going soft in the head, Sidney.” And he guessed she was right; he had probably been taken in. Besides, there were unattractive things about Haskell too: the supercilious manner, the theatrical way he talked and moved around.
If Haskell could be theatrical in the printshop, he was worse in the
Chronicle
office. And he spent as much time as he could in the office, far more time than was necessary.
“And do you realize?” he demanded of Hugh Britt one evening, pacing the floor for emphasis, “Do you realize I’ve written the last four editorials for him?
And
made up the staff assignments.
And
edited all the copy, not to mention writing most of it. He sits up there wrapping friction tape around his hockey stick, or rubbing neat’s-foot oil into his baseball glove, and saying he’s too busy. Too busy. Well, it’s got to stop, that’s all. It’s got to stop.”
“Why don’t you lay it on the line with him, John?” Hugh Britt said. “Tell him if you’re going to do the editor’s work you want to
be
the editor.”
Haskell hadn’t expected such a clear-cut suggestion. After a moment, smiling vaguely as he paced, he said “Ah, yes, Hughie; if only it were that simple.”
The office was in an upstairs section of Four building, well away from the kitchen help’s quarters, and it looked as much like a real newspaper office as Haskell could make it. There were two paper-strewn typewriter desks, and there was a hotplate and a coffee percolator with several chipped mugs. Haskell drank more coffee than he wanted, especially on deadline days; often, when the door was locked and the windows open, he and Britt smoked cigarettes here too.
Haskell took up a slumped, staring posture at the windows, his homely features set in the look of someone for whom one crisis is never enough. “And on top of everything else,” he said, “we now have
Grove
to contend with.”
“I don’t know why you say ‘contend,’ John.”
“Because he’ll be around our necks, that’s why. We’ll be contending with his funny face and his dirty clothes and hisawful fingernails, and we’ll spend all our time just keeping him
down
. He was up here sucking around
Similar Books
