type of
work. They are putting coarse, sketchy flowers on the cheaper
ware. Some of them, you will observe, are filling in designs that have
either first been printed, or transferred by the decalcomania process,
and must afterward be finished by hand. The girls supply the dabs of
color that are needed to complete the pattern."

"It looks easy."

"It is not highly skilled work," answered Mr. Marwood. "Some of our
methods, however, are far less skilled than this one. What would you
say, for instance, to decorating china with a sponge?"

"A sponge? Painting with a sponge?"

"Not exactly painting," protested Mr. Marwood. "It is not quite
that. We do, nevertheless, for our cheapest ware use a fine-grained
sponge cut in the shape of the desired design. This we dip in color
and with it impress a pattern on the clay as we would with a rubber
stamp."

"I should think you would use a rubber stamp and be done with it,"
replied Theo.

"It would not hold the color satisfactorily," explained
Mr. Marwood. "But we do use the stamping method for inexpensive gold
ware. We also imprint the firm name or trade-mark on the bottom of our
porcelain that way before it is glazed; so we do some stamping, you
see. Of course stamping is only for the cheap wares. The finest
porcelain is hand-decorated--or at least the major part of it is."

Theo was silent; then he said:

"Suppose after all the work of preparing the clay, and shaping and
decorating it, the piece is broken when the final glaze is put on?"

"That tragedy sometimes occurs," responded Mr. Marwood. "Often, too, a
piece with many colors and much gold work on it has to be fired
several times, and is therefore in jeopardy more than once. In
addition to these risks you must remember the number of hands through
which an article passes from the time of its moulding to its final
arrival from the glost-kiln. A delicate piece of ware is in peril
every second. It may be dropped and broken; chipped in handling; its
clay body may crack when exposed to the heat; the colors in the
decoration may fire out unsatisfactorily; or at the very end there may
be a defect in the glaze."

"Great Scott!" gasped Theo. "Why, I never should expect to get a
single perfect piece of porcelain."

"On the contrary, we get a great many," smiled Mr. Marwood. "They are
almost all perfect. The imperfect piece is the exception. But each
piece represents untold care. We sometimes laugh at the old adage of a
bul