"I guess," said I, "that I can get it printed, if you will advertise a little with them.’
"I never bribe," said Budlong, virtuously.
"I know that," said I. "We abhor it equally: still I think it would look more like business. The advertisement would draw people’s attention to the article; and reading the article would have a tendency to increase the circulation of the magazine."
"Oh!" said Budlong: "I hadn’t seen it in that light. I don’t know but you are correct. Well, say one page of advertisement each time the article is printed?"
This it was agreed I might offer.
"Now come along, "said my friend. "I’ve got to go right up town this moment; and I’ll show you through the whole concern."
So we took a University-place car—Barclay Street, corner of Broadway—which, with only one transfer, left us within two or three blocks of our destination.
On the way up, Budlong gave me one piece of information which greatly helped me to understand his invention, and which will, I believe, make it very clearly intelligible to most people who know what a mitrejoint or a king-post or a truss-bridge is; and, I hope, to those who do not. I had remarked to him that I believed I understood the vocalizing part of his machine—which was, I presumed, a development of the mechanism used in Vaucanson’s fluteplayer, Maelzel’s trumpeter, and the various speaking automata—but that I was thoroughly puzzled to see how he could deliver through the machine, a long, connected discourse. I could not suppose, I added, that he was going to hide a human being in each figure, as Von Kempelen did in his chess-player—a device quite too thin (to use a slang phrase of to-day, that may be classic to-morrow) for the present state of intelligence.
"Not at all," my friend observed. "All my work is genuine mechanism. The device for accomplishing what you refer to is, however, my own special invention, and is precisely what makes a commercial article out of the mere toy of those European fellows. I have simply adapted one of the parts of Alden’s type-setting machine to my use. Do you know that machine?"
As I did not, Mr. Budlong went on, with a kind of set though fluent clearness, which kept reminding me of the specifications in a patent. I dare say they were from precisely that source, at least in part.
"Take twenty-six type, one for each English letter; lay them down on their edges close together, with the faces all one way, like a long row of people in bed lying ‘spoon-fashion.’ Then let a different nick or notch, or set of nicks or notches, belong to the upper edge of each of the twenty-six. Suppose a thing like a comb, its back as long as one type, with as many teeth as there can be nicks on a type, and these teeth not tight in the back, but jointed to it. Now, if this comb be drawn along the backs of this row of twenty-six type, (across each individual type, of course) the teeth that fit the nicks of a, for instance, or of t, will fall into those nicks when they reach that letter.
"Now add the necessary mechanism for lifting out each letter when reached, and carrying it where it is wanted, and you have the principal element of the type-setting machine.
"Lastly, let the supposed comb be fixed, instead of moving; and instead of type—here is the precise contrivance of Budlong and Faber—instead of type to be carried under the jointed teeth, or fingers, and to let these fall into the proper nicks, let the teeth, or fingers, be lifted by marks in paper or other fabric, raised or embossed, as in printing for the blind; and, as the projections answering to each sound lift the teeth, let these teeth, continued by means equivalent to the leaders from the keys in a piano or organ, open the pipes, reeds, or valves which emit that sound.
"There! that is the heart of my mystery. I am not in the least afraid of telling it; for I have a monopoly of this application of Alden’s device; and this, you see, enabled me to dodge all the infringers. I should have had the Old Gentleman’s own time, if I had recorded an application for a patent. As it is, I have worked the whole thing out to perfection at my leisure, and without one particle of annoyance or interference."
I could not help admiring the truly American combination of mechanical and political genius thus described: and, if my praise did not satisfy Budlong, he must needs have been horribly vain; for I gave him a most hearty portion of it. Indeed, I challenge the intelligent reader (I scorn to address any other) to refuse me his meed of admiration for this most remarkable instance of ingenuity in mechanics, and masterly shrewdness in management. Would that all great inventors could have done the like! We should not have on our records such miserable stories as that of the thievish persecutions that swindled Whitney, nor the other similar cases.
The factory of Messrs. Budlong and Faber is on Twelfth Avenue, close to the North River, and between the water and Riverside Park. I well remember being struck, as we entered its precincts, by the dreariness of the premises, and the contrast between their sordid common-place and the brilliant conceptions that were being shaped into actual existence inside. There was a plain brick building of respectable size; the usual tall chimney and squatty engine-house flat at its foot, as if worshipping it; the staring windows, their dingy glass uncovered from the hot sunlight, like eyes left lidless by some torturing tyrant; a cloud of black smoke; the chatter of a small high-pressure engine, and the corresponding spitting discharge of steam from an escape-pipe; a narrow lawn of black dust and scoriae between the sidewalk and the door; two or three broken cog-wheels, shafts, and other portions of invalid machinery, leaning against the outside of the building, like old soldiers, sunning themselves in front of a hospital.
We entered the office, where Budlong left me for a few minutes to attend to some business or other. In his absence, I betook myself to inspecting divers articles, which adorned the walls of the little room. There were a few portraits of eminent public speakers, both lay and clerical; various drawings of machinery; and one rusty old print, executed in a coarse enough style, but with considerable spirit.
The imprint stated that it was a view of the newly invented "Kaihuper Seminarium:’’ date, 1807. This partly Greek and partly Latin appellation was somewhat difficult to interpret, but might perhaps be taken to imply that the "Seminarium" was kai huper—even ahead of—any thing theretofore invented in that line. The picture represented a curious machine, or mill, worked by a large crank, at which were laboring several stately personages in academic or clerical costume. Into a species of hopper, at one end, other gentlemen, of like demeanor and costume, were gravely casting huge pumpkins, squashes, cabbages, turnips, and other matters known in Yankee realms by the collective title of "green sarse." From the discharging-trough at the opposite extremity, hopped and tumbled a number of little lively black creatures, which I took at first to be frogs or diminutive apes, but which, upon closer inspection, were seen to be small clergymen of prim countenance, and jaunty and priggish bearing, accurately arrayed in well-fitting black garments. At their first exit from the machine, they were represented as falling upon the earth in a helpless, sprawly state, on their stomachs, or on all-fours. But they quickly hopped up, and were seen marching off to parts unknown, with a trig strut, and an air of satisfaction and delight, curiously suggestive of those young birds who run about, as naturalists tell us, with the egg-shell still on their heads.