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Compositors Working in Pairs
In the four shared takings the compositors set one or more cast-off galleys in a series of stints. In the first, Rendell set 4-6, L. Bristow 7-9 and Rendell 10. But in their next taking they worked even more closely together. L. Bristow set 35, Rendell 36-37 and then L. Bristow set 38 (MS pp. 404-413), although one page of it, which started with a new paragraph on the first line and ended with a complete paragraph on the last, was set by Rendell (p. 407). Then in the middle of p. 413, L. Bristow continued setting an unusually short section of only three and a half small pages which the clicker numbered "39" in the apparently improvised manner described above. The fact that this forced him to renumber the next cast-off galley appears to reveal that he needed to make some minor adjustments in his casting off at this point, but since the cast-off galley he cut short was one that these two compositors shared and set in unusually rapid overlapping stints, it may reveal instead that here the rate of imposition had caught up with the rate of setting, or they were rounding off a week's work.
Of the other two pairs of compositors who worked together, Deacon and Wright set in consistently longer stints: Deacon 19-23, Wright 24-25, Deacon 26-27, and Wright 28-30, tackling in this way nearly 120 pages of the manuscript, which was their total share of the book, amounting to about 3,770 lines of type or 10.7 galley proofs. It probably took them little more than a week. Similarly F. Bristow and Moore set a hundred pages in alternating stints, but their shares were unequal: F. Bristow 40-41, Moore 42, F. Bristow 43, 43A, 43B, Moore 44-46, 46A and F. Bristow 47-49. Moore had already set two cast-off galleys and in the final totals of lines he and F. Bristow were among the three who set the greatest number. The fact that he had not worked in conjunction with F. Bristow in his first taking suggests that the overlapping arrangements were ad hoc.
This interpretation, that the compositors' alternating stints were large takings distributed to pairs working simultaneously, is supported by the way the date, "27.1", was pencilled in by the clicker. It first occurs on p. 196, on the fifteenth page of Moore's twenty-three-page solo taking: he must therefore have set the first fourteen pages the week before. His taking ended at the end of Part I on MS p. 204, and the date then occurs a second time on p. 205, the start of Part II and of the 119-page taking set simultaneously by Deacon and Wright. Immediately after their last stint it occurs again, on p. 324 where Knowles the next compositor began. Thus it seems that on Monday 27 January the clicker began distributing Part II of the novel, the first twelve cast-off galleys to Deacon and Wright, the next four to Knowles.
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