answered
Mr. Marwood. "Porcelain requiring a shorter firing is placed near the
front of the kiln, so it can be removed if necessary before the rest
is taken out. After the kiln is filled the men brick up the door of
the oven and start the fire. There the china bakes from forty to sixty
hours. The length of time required depends on the sort of ware being
fired and the temperature of the kiln. Then the opening is unsealed
and the cooling process begins."

"Do they wait until the saggers and their contents are cold before
they take them out?" asked Theo.

"No, indeed," was Mr. Marwood's reply. "That would take too
long. Often we are in a hurry to get the goods out and the ovens
cooled for the next lot of porcelain; frequently, too, we want the
ware so that we may continue work upon it. Therefore we begin the
drawing while the oven is still very hot--so hot that the men are
stripped to the waist and wear only overalls, shoes, and thick
gloves. The kiln drawers are never forced to draw out the saggers,
however, when they are intensely hot unless they wish to do so. The
law protects such workers and specifies at just what degree of
temperature the work is to become optional. Not only do these men draw
the ware, but they also empty it from the saggers as well as put it
into the baskets in which it is carried back to the factory and
inspected, further decorated, or packed for shipping."

Mr. Marwood waited a moment, then added:

"In some foreign countries a tunnel kiln is used instead of an oven
like this. It is supposed to require less fuel. It is a long tunnel
with a track through the centre over which little cars laden with ware
are propelled by machinery. The heat is graded in such a way that it
is most intense in the middle of the kiln. The ware starts at one end
of this tunnel where the temperature is quite low, travels toward the
centre where the heat is highest, and then comes out at the other end
of the tunnel through a diminishing heat. In this way it cools
gradually. They say, however, that such a method is more successful
for biscuit (the unglazed china) than for the glost. Here in America
where fuel has always been plenty we have stuck to our old-fashioned
brick ovens in spite of their expense. I am afraid we are not a saving
nation."

"Father says that after this war is over we shall have to be more
saving," said Theo.

"I believe that too," confessed Mr. Marwood. "We never have learned
to figure things d