The Dreeson Incident(121)

"Well, your dad keeps her out of it, as much as he can," Ron said. "And you've got to admit that Willie Ray is in his glory. Your grandfather's having a wonderful time."



"Oh, yeah." Missy giggled. "Just like the old days, back when he was in the state legislature. He's having a ball."



"He and Dreeson make quite a pair."





Chapter 38





Frankfurt am Main


"The Vignelli machine is broken." Deneau looked up in annoyance.



"What did you expect?" Brillard put down the stylus with which he was making a stencil. Another stencil. One of the many deliberately amateurish stencils that Locqufier's group had spent their time making this winter. They offended Brillard's pride. He had been a properly apprenticed type maker, once upon a time. Before the lead type had been taken by de Rohan's soldiers, to make bullets. Before the dysentery that the soldiers brought to his home town carried off his master and fellow apprentices. Before he had been caught up in the first of de Rohan's Huguenot revolts and become a soldier himself, nearly fifteen years ago.



He started to count on his fingers. "First, the unfortunate machine has been asked to make hundreds of pamphlets opposing the practice of vaccination. For many reasons. Not only those set forth in the up-time materials that the man in Grantville sent to de Ron, but also for new reasons that we invented, such as that getting a vaccination indicates that a person is not meekly submitting to the will of God.



"Then, from the encyclopedia, Gui found out that the up-timers—not the ones now in Grantville, but their ancestors a century and a half before the time they came from—had opposed these new 'lightning rods' for much the same reason. So we requested of the poor machine that it be so kind as to produce hundreds of pamphlets opposing lightning rods.



"Plus Antoine's ordinary diatribes against Richelieu.



"Plus manifestoes for Weitz.



"Followed by the need for Guillaume's 'rumors of assassinations' pamphlets by the thousand. What did we expect? The poor machine is overstrained. 'Stress' that up-time reporter, Waters is his name, calls it in his 'American' newspaper."



Ancelin walked over and gave the roller a disgusted poke. "Whether it is stressed or broken, it will not produce any more pamphlets. We can still make the stencils ourselves, of course. But until Fortunat can find someone to fix it, we're out of the pamphlet business."



Locquifier shook his head. "We cannot fall behind now. There are printers in Frankfurt who have Vignellis. We must hire the use of one. Not give our stencils to him, of course. He might read them. We can't risk having the authorities discover the source of so many of the pamphlets in circulation. Just hire the use of the machine after the man's normal working day. We can demonstrate to him that you know how to work it, Fortunat. And find someone to fix ours."



Brillard shook his head. "No. One of us, at least, would have to go to the print shop. The man would know that we, the Frenchmen living Zum Weissen Schwan, are producing masses of pamphlets. Just get the machine fixed."



"We can't have a repairman come here, either," Deneau protested.



Locquifier pulled on his mustache. "No, no, of course not. Find out if one of the printers knows someone who can fix it. We will take it to the shop."



"Mathurin is right. None of us should take it to the shop, either," Ouvrard said. "The printer will learn that the Frenchmen living Zum Weissen Schwan have a Vignelli. None of should ask about repairs, either. It might bring the attention of the authorities to us. We can't be too cautious."



Locquifier jumped up. "Have Isaac de Ron send one of his porters around to ask who can repair the machine. Put the machine in a box. Seal the box. Have the porter deliver the sealed box to the print shop and then bring it back again. But . . ." He banged his fist on the table. "Fix the machine!"



* * *



The printer Crispin Neumann told de Ron's porter that he had a duplicating machine of his own and his apprentice was quite skilled in its maintenance.



So Locquifier told de Ron to have the porter remove the boxed machine from the back parlor and take it to Neumann.



Which made Emrich Menig very happy. He loved to fiddle with Vignellis.



Martin Wackernagel lounged lazily in the back room of the shop, watching Menig disassemble and then reassemble the machine.



"Stupid klutz," Menig muttered.



"What?"



"He's managed to get the silk from one of his stencils bunched up here." He jerked it out and threw it at his honorary uncle.



Who spread it out and read it. Not having anything better to do at the moment.