Paul and the Printing Press

It was the vision of a monthly paper for the Burmingham High School that first turned Paul Cameron's attention toward a printing press.

"Dad, how much does a printing press cost?" he inquired one evening as he sat down to dinner.

"A what?"

"A printing press."

Mr. Cameron glanced up quizzically from the roast he was carving.

"Aren't you a trifle ambitious?"

Paul laughed.

"Perhaps I am," he admitted. "But I have often heard you say, 'Nothing venture, nothing have.'"

It was his father's turn to laugh.

"Yet why does your fancy take its flight toward a printing press?"

Eagerly Paul bent forward.

"Why you see, sir," he explained, "ever since I was chosen President of '20 I've wanted my class to be the finest the Burmingham High ever graduated. I want it to leave a record behind it, and do things no other class ever has. There has never been a school paper. They have them in other places. Why shouldn't we?"

Mr. Cameron was all attention now.

"We've plenty of talent," went on Paul with enthusiasm. "Even Mr. Calder, who is at the head of the English department, asserts that. Dick Rogers has had a poem printed in the town paper-"

He saw a twinkle light his father's eye.

"Maybe you'd just call it a verse," the boy smiled apologetically, "but up at school we call it a poem. It was about the war. And Eva Hardy has had an essay published somewhere and got two dollars for it."

"You don't say so!"

"Besides, there is lots of stuff about the football and hockey teams that we want to print-accounts of the games, and notices of the matches to be played. And the girls want to boom their Red Cross work and the fair they are going to have. There'd be plenty of material."

"Enough to fill a good-sized daily, I should think," remarked Mr. Cameron, chuckling.

Paul took the joke good-naturedly.

"How do people run a paper anyhow?" he questioned presently. "Do printing presses cost much? And where do you get them? And do you suppose we fellows could run one if we had it?"

His father leaned back in his chair.

"A fine printing press is a very intricate and expensive piece of property, my son," he replied. "It would take several hundred dollars to equip a plant that would do creditable work. The preparation of copy and the task of getting it out would also take a great deal of time. Considering the work you already have to do, I should not advise you to annex a printer's job to your other duties."

He saw the lad's face cloud.

"The better way to go at such an undertaking," he hastened to add, "would be to have your publication printed by some established press."

"Could we do it that way?"

"Certainly," Mr. Cameron nodded. "There are always firms that are glad to get extra work if paid satisfactorily for it."

There was a pause.

"The pay is just the rub," Paul confessed frankly. "You see we haven't any class treasury to draw on; at least we have one, but there's nothing in it."

The two exchanged a smile.

"But you would plan to take subscriptions," said the elder man. "Surely you are not going to give your literary efforts away free of charge."

"N-o," came slowly from Paul. Then he continued more positively. "Oh, of course we should try to make what we wrote worth selling. We'd make people pay for it. But we couldn't charge much. Most of us have been paying for our Liberty Bonds and haven't a great deal to spare. I know I haven't."

"About what price do you think you could get for a school paper?"

"I don't know. I haven't thought much about it. Perhaps a dollar, or a dollar and a quarter a year. Not more than that."

"And how many members would be likely to take it?"

Paul meditated.

"There are about fifty seniors," he said. "But of course the other three classes would subscribe-at least some of them would. We shouldn't confine the thing simply to the doings of the seniors. We should put in not only general school news but items about the lower classes as well so that the paper would interest everybody. It ought to bring us in quite a little money. Shouldn't you think we could buy a press and run it for two hundred dollars?"

"Have you considered the price of paper and of ink, son?"

"No; but they can't cost much," was the sanguine response.

"Alas, they not only can but do," replied his father.

"Then you think we couldn't have a school paper."

"I did not say that."

"Well, you mean we couldn't make it pay."

"I shouldn't go so far as that, either," returned Mr. Cameron kindly. "What I mean is that you could not buy a printing press and operate it with the money you would probably have at hand. Nevertheless there are, as I said before, other ways of getting at the matter. If I were in your place I should look them up before I abandoned the project."

"How?"

"Make sure of your proposition. Find out how many of your schoolmates would pledge themselves to subscribe to a paper if you had one. Then, when you have made a rough estimate of about how much money you would be likely to secure, go and see some printer and put the question up to him. Tell him what you would want and find out exactly what he could do for you. You've always been in a hurry to leave school and take up business. Here is a business proposition right now. Try your hand at it and see how you like it."

Mr. Cameron pushed back his chair, rose, and sauntered into his den; and Paul, familiar with his father's habits, did not follow him, for he knew that from now until late into the evening the elder man would be occupied with law books and papers.

Therefore the lad strolled out into the yard. His studying was done; and even if it had not been he was in no frame of mind to attack it to-night. A myriad of schemes and problems occupied his thought. Slowly he turned into the walk and presently he found himself in the street.

It was a still October twilight,-so still that one could hear the rustle of the dry leaves as they dropped from the trees and blew idly along the sidewalk. There was a tang of smoke in the air, and a blue haze from smoldering bonfires veiled the fall atmosphere.

Aimlessly Paul lingered. No one was in sight. Then the metallic shrillness of a bicycle bell broke the silence. He wheeled about. Noiselessly threading his way down the village highway came a thick-set, rosy-faced boy of sixteen or seventeen years of age.

"Hi, Carter!" called Paul. "Hold on! I want to see you."

Carter grinned; stopping his wheel by rising erect on its pedals, he vaulted to the ground.

"What's up, Paul?"

Without introduction Paul plunged into his subject. He spoke earnestly and with boyish eloquence.

"Say, Cart, what do you think of '20 starting a school paper?"

"A paper! Great hat, Kipper-what for?"

Kipper was Paul's nickname.

"Why, to read, man."

"Oh, don't talk of reading," was Melville Carter's spirited retort. "Aren't we all red-eyed already with Latin and Roman history? Why add a paper to our troubles?"

Paul did not reply.

"What do you want with a paper, Kipper?" persisted Melville.

"Why to print our life histories and obituaries in," he answered. "To extol our friends and damn our enemies."

Carter laughed.

"Come off," returned he, affectionately knocking Paul's hat down over his eyes.

"Stop your kidding, Cart. I'm serious."

"You really want a newspaper, Kip? Another newspaper! Scott! I don't. I never read the ones there are already."

"I don't mean a newspaper, Cart," explained Paul with a touch of irritation. "I mean a zippy little monthly with all the school news in it-hockey, football, class meetings, and all the things we'd like to read. Not highbrow stuff."

"Oh! I get you, Kipper," replied young Carter, a gleam of interest dawning in his face.

"That wouldn't be half bad. A school paper!" he paused thoughtfully. "But the money, Kip-the money to back such a scheme? What about that?"

"We could take subscriptions."

"At how much a subscrip, oh promoter?"

"I don't know," Paul responded vaguely. "One-twenty-five per-"

"Per-haps," cut in Melville, "and perhaps not. Who do you think, Kipper, is going to pay a perfectly good dollar and a quarter for the privilege of seeing his name in print and reading all the things he knew before?"

In spite of himself Paul chuckled.

"Maybe they wouldn't know them before."

"Football and hockey! Nix! Don't they all go to the games?"

"Not always. Besides, we'd put other things in-grinds on the Freshies-all sorts of stuff."

"I say! That wouldn't be so worse, would it?" declared Melville with appreciation.

He looked down and began to dig a hole in the earth with the toe of his much worn sneaker.

"Your idea is all right, Kip-corking," he asserted at length. "But the ducats-where would those come from? It would cost a pile to print a paper."

"I suppose we couldn't buy a press second-hand and do our own printing," ruminated Paul.

"Buy a press!" shouted Carter, breaking into a guffaw. "You are a green one, Kip, even if you are class president. Why, man alive, a printing press that's any good costs a small fortune-more money than the whole High School has, all put together. I know what presses cost because my father is in the publishing business."

Paul sighed.

"That's about what my dad said," he affirmed reluctantly. "He suggested we get someone to print the paper for us."

"Oh, we could do that all right if we had the spondulics."

"The subscriptions would net us quite a sum."

"How much could we bank on?"

"I've no idea," Paul murmured.

"I'll bet I could nail most of the Juniors. I'd simply stand them up against the wall and tell them it was their money or their life-death or a subscription to the-what are you going to call this rich and rare newspaper?" he inquired, suddenly breaking off in the midst of his harangue and turning to his companion.

"I hadn't got as far as that," answered Paul blankly.

"But you've got to get a name, you know," Melville declared. "You can't expect to boom something so hazy that it isn't called anything at all. Don't you want to take our class paper won't draw the crowd. You've got to start with a slogan-something spectacular and thrilling. Buy the Nutcracker! Subscribe to the Fire-eater! Have a copy of the Jabberwock! For goodness sake, christen it something! Start out with a punch or you'll never get anywhere. Why not call it The March Hare? That's wild and crazy enough to suit anybody. Then you can publish any old trash in it that you chose. They've brought it on themselves if they stand for such a title."

Paul clapped a hand on his friend's shoulder.

"The March Hare!" he repeated with enthusiasm. "You've hit it, Cart! The March Hare it is! We'll begin getting subscriptions to-morrow."

"You wouldn't want to issue a sample copy first, would you?" Melville suggested.

"No, siree! That'll be the fun. They must go it blind. We'll make the whole thing as spooky and mysterious as we can. Nobody shall know what he is going to eat. It will be twice the sport."

"But suppose after you've collected all your money you find you can't get any one to print the paper?"

"We'll have to take a chance," replied Paul instantly. "If worst comes to worst we can give the money back again. But I shan't figure on doing that. We'll win out, Cart; don't you worry."

"The March Hare!" he repeated with enthusiasm. "You've hit it, Cart!" Page 10.

"Bully for you, old man! You sure are a sport. Nothing like selling something that doesn't even exist! I see you years hence on Wall Street, peddling nebulous gold mines and watered stocks."

"Oh, shut up, can't you!" laughed Paul good-naturedly. "Quit your joshing! I'm serious. You've got to help me, too. You must start in landing subscriptions to-morrow."

"I! I go around rooting for your March Hare when I know that not a line of it has seen printer's ink!" sniffed Melville.

"Sure!"

Melville grinned.

"Well, you have a nerve!" he affirmed.

"You're going to do it just the same, Cart."

There was a compelling, magnetic quality in Paul Cameron which had won for him his leadership at school; it came to his aid in the present instance.

Melville looked for a second into his chum's face and then smiled.

"All right," he answered. "I'm with you, Kipper. We'll see what we can do toward fooling the public."

"I don't mean to fool them," Paul retorted. "I'm in dead earnest. I mean to get out a good school paper that shall be worth the money people pay for it. There shall be no fake about it. To-morrow I shall call a class meeting and we'll elect an editorial staff-editor-in-chief, publicity committee, board of managers, and all the proper dignitaries. Then we'll get right down to work."

Melville regarded his friend with undisguised admiration.

"You'll make it a go, Kip!" he cried. "I feel it in my bones now. Hurrah for the March Hare! I can hear the shekels chinking into our pockets this minute. Put me down for the first subscription. I'll break the ginger-ale bottle over the treasury."

"Shall it be a dollar, a dollar and a quarter, or an out and out one-fifty?"

"Oh, put it at one-fifty. We're all millionaires and we may as well go in big while we're at it. What is one-fifty for such a ream of wisdom as we're going to get for our money?"

Melville vaulted into his bicycle saddle.

"Well, I'm off, Kipper," he called over his shoulder. "Got to do some errands for the Mater. So long!"

"I can depend on you, Cart?"

"Sure you can. I'll shout for your March Hare with all my lungs. I'm quite keen about it already."

Paul watched him speed through the gathering shadows and disappear round the turn in the road. Then, straightening his shoulders with resolution, he went into the house to seek his pillow and dream dreams of the March Hare.

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