John Gutenberg, in his humble workshop, turned round on hearing the door behind him creak on its hinges. “You see, I knew it,” said one of the new comers on entering, “there he is, still at work.” He to whom these words were addressed shrugged his shoulders slightly, both came forward, and the foremost, with his head respectfully uncovered, approached Gutenberg, who gave his visitors a friendly greeting. Addressing the second, “Will it please you, my dear Doctor,” he said, “to look on for a few moments while I am at work? If so, take this stool, and sit at your ease, as far at least as that is possible in my humble abode. Beildech,” said he to the other, “did you take care to fasten the latch as you came in?” “Yes, Master,” replied Beildech; “but it must be close upon midnight, it is time for you to leave off work; here you are still at your table; will you never learn to think of yourself, and of those who love you?” At these words the old man, with a gesture full of tenderness, took the hand of the speaker and pressed it on his heart. Beildech was the only one who, through good fortune and evil fortune, had invariably stood by Gutenberg, from the day when the latter left the gates of his native town on horseback, to direct his steps towards Strasburg; days of youth and of beauty.
The second person whom we introduced was named Dr. Humery. He was Syndic of the free city of Maïence, and a wise man, if ever there was one, and well versed in the knowledge of all that was right and just. The chronicles say that even in a state of blindness he could have distinguished black from white, and white from black--a science which has completely escaped the numerous successors of the Syndic Humery! He called himself the patron of Gutenberg in the year 1455, when a sentence of the tribunal of Maïence, having forced the poor printer to give up his workshop to John Fust his creditor, Gutenberg, his heart overflowing with resentment against his native town, fled to Strasburg; but finding that he succeeded no better there than elsewhere, he soon returned to his own country. While Master John was seeking some resting-place where he might pursue his art, it was the Syndic Humery who advanced the seventy crowns which Gutenberg required to set up his new presses, and who provided him with the quarters which we have described. “On account of which,” said the convention, “the above named Master John is held to continue his labours at the risk and the peril of Humery.”