"O yes, certainly. The quads of course.
By the bye, what are the quads?"

"Quadrats, sir. We call 'em quads."

"Exactly. Yes. And so you take a
casting?"

"Bless you, no, sir, you don't seem to understand.
Quads are the spaces left between the
paragraphs that come white on the paper. If
you look here, at this page that is set-up, you
will see that they are deeper than the spaces
left between the words and letters—regular
little trenches. We don't want any of them.
We must have all the spaces of an equal
depth."

"And so you cover the whole mass with
a thin mud of plaster; which that
mischievous young monkey there is washing off
again."

"Yes, he's bound to do that, and then I,
with a soft brush, go and rub at it; but,
look you, my brush sweeps the plaster from
about the letters and between them, but it
passes over the top of the deep quads and
smooths it into them. I made the heights
all even with a mallet, now I'm evening the
depths with plaster and a hair-brush."

Cunning workman, you are understood.
You need not explain why you in the next
place with a delicate touch wipe fine oil over
the types you have prepared; you are about
to take a casting of those pages of the
work whose title you and your brethren so
irreverently shorten.

A collar is placed about the lump of H. W.
which fits it, and sticks up around it, sloping
outwards. The type and its new collar
together make a pudding-pan; and, into the
pan plaster pudding—mixed by hand in a large
bowl—is, in the next place, carefully poured.
Carefully, because at first it must be rubbed
and smoothed, and perfectly insinuated
between every crevice; the sharp outline of
no letter must be rounded by a bubble.
When the pan is full, the pudding stands to
set, the top of it being in the meantime
scraped smooth and flat. In less than a
quarter of an hour, it is firm enough to be
lifted by its frame, upon the bevelled sides of
which it is supported, and the heavy types,
forming the false bottom to the pan, are left
behind. A plaster cast, shaped like a little
Yorkshire pudding, has upon one side of it an
accurate impression of those two pages of
H. W. The characters inscribed thus upon
pudding remind one very much of Nineveh
and Babylon, but not at all of sixteen,
Wellington Street North, Strand, London.
Since this cast is the mould or sop which will
be dipped presently into the pan of Vulcan's
gravy, "You see, sir," says the cunning work-
man, "if I hadn't made the back of it quite
even, the hot lead would lie more on one
part than another, and the plaster then would
crack. Next-a-ways all the damp must be
got out, and so we put the casts into these
ovens to be dried. They want care. I don't
understand what they want in thermometer
degrees, but I know the exact heat by practice
—this way: with my bare arm thrust
into the oven."

The mould being quite dry, the demonstrator
takes a piece of metal that resembles it in
shape and size. "This," he says, "is a float.
You see there's a rim round the cast side of
the mould. The plaster was allowed to run
down for the purpose of a making of it. I just
smooth that with a knife, and nick it in a place
or two, and lay the plaster cast side
downwards, on the float. Now when that goes into
the metal, metal can flow in between the nicks.
Nextly here is the great pan without a lid, full
of metal whereof stereotype plates are made;
six parts lead, hardened with one part
antimony. The metal's now at melting heat.
Here's a crane over it, with a fixed plate
hanging to it. Under the plate we put the
plaster mould, with the float or swimming
jacket under that, and down they all go for a
warm bath. Now you see the float won't sink
willingly, and the plate fastened to the crane
can't rise: the plaster is between the two,
and the float at the bottom. What's the
results? The float pushes the plaster up, and
keeps it fastened tight with its flat back
against the plate above it. The metal forces
in between the notches, but the float won't
be shoved down by the metal, and forces
that up consequently into every cranny of the
plaster mould. What's the results again?
We take it out and cool it with a little
water, and there you have two pages of H. W.
stereotyped on one plate—beautiful to look
at! Just like a married couple."

From this plate the two pages will be
printed, if it be not found faulty in another
room, to which we follow it. It is there
subjected to the criticism of another censor; who
looks through it letter by letter, picks it over
with a graver, and rejects it if it contain any
flaw that cannot be removed in his department.
If accepted by him it is subjected to
further treatment. The pair of pages, now
existing as a solid plate, will be again united
under the printing press with the pairs from
which it had parted; they will all meet again
in their new form, and when they do meet,
it will be as necessary that the separate
stereotype plates should lie evenly side by side
under the paper, as that the letters in each
plate should present a level surface. Their
edges are therefore cut by a machine. Their
backs are first smoothed by a turning lathe.
They are then placed on a flat table, and
passed under a blade, so adjusted as to
produce among all plates submitted to its cutting
scrutiny, an almost perfect uniformity of
thickness. Out of this room the plate of
H. W., containing as we have said two pages,
is sent to be used in its place for the actual
printing of a weekly number.

Under the press, however, it is again
subjected to criticism. The plates that belong
together are slipped into nests prepared for
their reception; of which the outer rims print