is fifteen or
twenty per cent.; and in other countries where the people have less
mechanical skill the rate of loss is much higher. Successful silk
reeling is a matter of good machinery, practice, and deftness. An
experienced reeler knows his business too well to waste material."

"All this is amazing to me," said Pierre. "I thought the men just took
the end of the thread and wound it off without any trouble."

Henri shook his head.

"No, indeed. I wish it were as easy as that. A reeler needs judgment,
judgment, judgment at every turn. Not only must the floss be removed
from the outside of the cocoon before it is reeled, but also the first
part of the filament, which usually is weak and too fine for use, must
be wound off until the firm, strong thread is reached. You see, the
caterpillar has to work a little while before it gets under way and does
its best spinning. All that poor filament on which it experiments or
gets started must be broken off and saved for embroidery floss, since it
is fit neither to be woven into broad goods or twisted into sewing silk.
The reeler begins to wind where the end of the filament becomes strong.
He then must combine enough fibres of the same size and strength to make
a thread uniform in size. And this is not so easy as it sounds, since
there is great diversity in the coarseness and fineness of the filament
on the cocoons. He cannot always put the same number of filaments
together. In addition to this fact he is often required to reel silk of
various sizes. The coarseness or fineness demanded all depends on the
purpose for which the silk is to be used. But always each kind must be
of uniform size throughout."

"And how does he join the fresh cocoons to the others? By tying?"

"No. He runs them in so skilfully that the joining cannot be detected.
Every moment he must be on the watch to add new filaments when he sees
any of his cocoons giving out. As one cocoon takes the place of another
its filament blends unnoticed in the thread. You can see that it would
never do to join a lot of new ones all in the same spot."

"I suppose the cocoons run in uneven lengths, anyway, don't they?"
ventured Pierre. "Scarcely any of them would contain the same number of
yards of filament even were they all to be started together."

"Precisely. So the reeler keeps adding fresh fibres, being careful
always that his thread is running uniform all the time. If he uses
fibres of fine quality there must be m