An hour later, with a nice, shiny new padlock, I went back to the composing-room. But I very nearly fainted when I saw the activity going on back there. The composing-room was filled with High-Pockets Joneses.
Two still were at the linecasting machines, and a whole crew of others were running around the floor.
“Where’s the foreman?” I barked.
High-Pockets Jones—one of them—came to attention. “He went home. He was quite discouraged; he told us to throw in all the standing type we could find.”
It didn’t look good. I had the feeling that High-Pockets was laughing at me—this High-Pockets, anyway.
That reminded me. I gathered up all the High-Pocketses in the composing-room and lined them up. There were nine—exactly nine—every one of them over seven feet tall and thin as a sidestick, every one of them with a gentle, booming voice.
I