linotype metal

One of the men present steps in here; I close the door, see that the machine is charged here on the other side with plenty of linotype metal to provide the material of atomic synthesis, press the button, and lo!

At one point, he breathes "the tart smell of the Linotype metal cooking the machine's bowels, the rich shop smells of ink and glycerine and paper" and says to himself that "if he was nothing else, he was, by God, a printer."

In-other words," High-Pockets said, "if we are short an operator, I can walk in that cabinet and you can in a few minutes make another High-Pockets Jones, who will set type until you put him back into the cabinet and turn him back into a hundred and sixty pounds of linotype metal?