I was still studying upon this ancient caricature—of which, indeed, I had heard, and which I had sought after in vain—when my friend came to show me through the factory. "We are filling an order for assorted ministers, this week," said he, "and, except a few specimens in the show-room, you can see hardly anything else to-day. But the difference is entirely in externals."
We entered first one or two workshops, of no very particular kind, with lines of shafting overhead, lathes and drills whizzing below, the belts sliding and slapping, and busy workmen operating upon combinations of wood, metal, hard and soft rubber, and gutta-percha, which might, perhaps, be generally described as seeming to be the progeny of the marriage of a mouth organ with a wooden clock.
"There," observed Budlong, as he paused before a concatenation of delicate springs, wheels, pipes, and valves, "this is the principal portion—what we call the main action—of the works of a patent minister. This is the vocalizing part, and must go into all of them, of course. There is also always the bellows, the transfer-press (which I described to you) for carrying the prepared printed matter, and the power, or mainspring, which runs the whole. The rest of the works are detached actions for several purposes, all driven by the same power, but which need not be put into the machine unless required, and which can be thrown in or out of gear as desired. There are the gesture movement, which operates the arms and hands, legs, neck, and spine; the expression movement which runs the face; and the stops. About these stops I will show you when we come to a machine set up."
It is not needful for me to detail the arrangement of the workshops, nor the numerous neat devices, and the general compact arrangement of the machinery. The junior partner, indeed, who would have been the best man to do this, was, as I have shown, absent in Washington on a business-trip. Suffice it to say, that the factory includes the following departments:—
1. The machine-shop, where the "actions" are prepared for connection with the remainder of the figure.
2. The body-shop, where the gutta-percha faces and hands, and the remaining corporeal structures, are made, and the whole creature set up, so far as its working-parts are concerned. This might poetically be figured as a paradise, or garden of Eden, from which these Adams were to be turned out naked.
3. The tailor’s shop, where the garments are made and put on.
4. The proving-room. The tests here made are extremely thorough; for it will readily be imagined that any defect in the machinery or its working might cause most ludicrous and mortifying scenes. The explosion or collapse of a patent minister in the middle of his sermon, for instance, though not so terrible as the sudden deaths which have sometimes so happened, would be only less undesirable and lamentable than such an interruption.
The machine-shop, as already described, was much like any other machine-shop. In the second, or body-shop, there was, however, more that was peculiar and amusing. I inspected with great interest a long row of gutta-percha heads on shelves—some bald; some adorned with elegant heads of hair in various states of curl; some old, and some young; some with beard and mustache, others shaved clean. A messenger came just as we were looking at these, to call Budlong to the office to deal with some important customer. I went on inspecting the rows of heads, until I had examined them all; and then, looking aimlessly about, as one does who is at a loss for occupation, I saw a door having the mysterious legend, "Positively No Admission for any Purpose Whatever." Now, I need not explain to the Yankee mind, that this legend always signifies, "Here is just the most interesting thing of all!" I tried the door at once. Why should I not? for Budlong had said I was to see every part of the factory. Still it is possible—observe, I say possible—that, if my mind had in the least misgiven me, I should not have opened the door. And, moreover, what business had they to leave it unlocked if it was so very sacred and secret? And how do I know now, but that the inscription had been put there by previous occupants? Nor, lastly, am I at all certain that it was not my duty to go in, as it certainly is my duty to inform the public of what I discovered in consequence. Right or wrong, however—and I had infinitely more justification for entering than had the wife of the late Mr. Bluebeard into the historic closet—right or wrong, in I went; and I was, I fancy, quite as much astounded by what I saw as was that amiable young woman. The first thought that flashed across my mind, as I glanced upon this additional row of heads, was indeed horrid: "Have murderers enticed all the great public speakers of the day into this bloody den, and decapitated them?—the Rev. Dr.—, the Rev. Mr.—, the Hon. Mr.—?" Face after face, as familiar as those of the first Napoleon or Gen. Washington, I saw silent and moveless upon the shelves. A painful spasm of indistinct but intense apprehension for a moment made my very heart stand still. So powerful was the impression, moreover, that I could not escape entirely from it; and, after hastily verifying my observations, I gladly retreated out of the uncanny place, and, shutting the door, returned to the contemplation of the insignificant, generalized types of humanity outside; though I could not help pondering upon what might be the possible significance of that executioner’s museum so choicely hidden away there. However, my guide very soon came back; and, as I turned round, upon his opening the door, I thought he glanced with an uneasy air towards the closet of horrors; and I therefore gave up, by one of those intuitive apprehensions of the disagreeable, which sometimes flash across us, my previous purpose of asking what it meant. A vulgar person, now, would have been only the more resolute to inquire. What a fine thing it is to be polite!
Mr. Budlong began at once—I fancied with something of forced volubility and interest, as of one who would fain direct wholly the course of talk—to discuss the heads before us. He took down one of them, and holding it in both hands, with the face towards me, caused the dead visage to writhe and gibber in so fearful a manner, that I started as if a corpse were grinning and winking at me. "You see," said he, "that we are enabled to furnish a large range of expressions." And he squeezed the face again, and produced half a dozen exceedingly nauseous simpers and smiles. Then he laid the thing on the table, and inflicted a ferocious blow upon its nose; insomuch that his hand drove in the face completely. "But," I remonstrated, "aside from the danger of injuring the article, is there no risk of injuring the moral sense of your operatives by allowing them to witness such treatment of a clergyman?"
"Oh, no!" replied he. "The material will take no injury, even from much severer blows than that; and people that make wooden images are not, in this country, likely to have much respect for them, at any rate. Our workmen are well used to their trade: they think neither the better nor the worse of a minister because they have played football with his head, and manufactured his bowels and his brains for him. It’s all a matter of business with them."
A naked minister, near several others, stood ready for transfer to the tailor’s shop. The head and hands were finished and colored skilfully, like nature, and suggested the ghastly idea that they had been cut off from a live man, or a dead one, and stuck up there for models. The rest of the creature was a mass of machinery, bearing enough resemblance to the human figure to admit of being draped into a sufficient resemblance to it.
"John," said my friend to a workman who was passing through the room at the moment, "is that improved double-action minister wound up?"
"Yes, sir," replied the man: "but he isn’t oiled; and the power hasn’t been regulated."
"Never mind," answered Budlong, turning to me: "he’ll click and rattle, and grin and squirm a little; but you can get an idea of the operation of the works." So saying, he threw the machinery into gear with a key.