"Yes sir."

Jake kept his word.

On the following afternoon, not only was Jimmy presented with one of the
standard learn-it-yourself books on touch-typing, but Jake also contrived
a sturdy desk out of one old packing case and a miniature chair out of
another. Both articles of home-brewed furniture Jake insisted upon having
painted before he permitted them inside his odd dwelling, and that
delayed Jimmy one more day.

But it was only one more day; and then a new era of experience began for
Jimmy.

It would be nice to report that he went at it with determination,
self-discipline, and system, following instructions to the letter and
emerging a first-rate typist.

Sorry. Jimmy hated every minute of it. He galled at the pages and pages
of _juj juj juj frf frf frf_. He cried with frustration because he could
not perform the simple exercise to perfection. He skipped through the
book so close to complete failure that he hurled it across the room, and
cried in anger because he had not the strength to throw the typewriter
after it. Throw the machine? He had not the strength in his pinky to
press the carriage-shift key!

Part of his difficulty was the size of his hands, of course. But most of
his trouble lay deep-seated in his recollection of his parents' fabulous
machine. It would have made a typist of him in a single half-hour