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servant Denton had now become: it was a huge, dim, glittering thing with
a projecting hood that had a remote resemblance to a bowed head, and,
squatting like some metal Buddha in this weird light that ministered to
its needs, it seemed to Denton in certain moods almost as if this must
needs be the obscure idol to which humanity in some strange aberration
had offered up his life. His duties had a varied monotony. Such items as
the following will convey an idea of the service of the press. The thing
worked with a busy clicking so long as things went well; but if the
paste that came pouring through a feeder from another room and which it
was perpetually compressing into thin plates, changed in quality the
rhythm of its click altered and Denton hastened to make certain
adjustments. The slightest delay involved a waste of paste and the
docking of one or more of his daily pence. If the supply of paste
waned--there were hand processes of a peculiar sort involved in its
preparation, and sometimes the workers had convulsions which deranged
their output--Denton had to throw the press out of gear. In the painful
vigilance a multitude of such trivial attentions entailed, painful
because of the incessant effort its absence of natural interest
required, Denton had now to pass one-third of his days. Save for an
occasional visit from the manager, a kindly but singularly foul-mouthed
man, Denton passed his working hours in solitude.
Elizabeth's work was of a more social sort. There was a fashion for
covering the private apartments of the very wealthy with metal plates
beautifully embossed with repeated patterns. The taste of the time
demanded, however, that the repetition of the patterns should not be
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