authority.

The little foreman turned quite round in his chair and looked on. There
was no reply. The pale men went on with their work as if Giovanni were
not there, and Zorzi leaned calmly on his blow-pipe. Giovanni moved a
step forward and spoke directly to one of the men who had just dropped a
finished glass into the bed of soft wood ashes, to be taken to the
annealing oven.

"Stop working for a while," he said. "Let Zorzi have your place."

"The foreman gives orders here, not you," answered the man coolly, and
he prepared to begin another piece.

Giovanni was very angry, but there were too many of the workmen, and he
did not say what rose to his lips, but crossed over to the foreman.
Zorzi kept his place, waiting to see what might happen.

"Will you be so good as to order one of the men to give up his place?"
Giovanni asked.

The old foreman smiled at this humble acknowledgment of his authority,
but he argued the point before acceding.

"The men know well enough what Zorzi can do," he answered in a low
voice. "They dislike him, because he is not one of us. I advise you to
take him to your own glass-house, sir, if you wish to see him work. You
will only make trouble here."

"I am not afraid of any trouble, I tell you," replied Giovanni. "Please
do what I ask."

"Very well. I will, but I take no responsibility before the master if
there is a disturbance. The men are in a bad humour and the weather is
hot."

"I will be responsible to my father," said Giovanni.

"Very well," repeated the old man. "You are a glass-maker yourself, like
the rest of us. You know how we look upon foreigners who steal their
knowledge of our art."

"I wish to make sure that he has really stolen something of it."

The foreman laughed outright.

"You will be convinced soon enough!" he said. "Give your place to the
foreigner, Piero," he added, speaking to the man who had refused to move
at Giovanni's bidding.

Piero at once chilled the fresh lump of glass he had begun to fashion
and smashed it off the tube into the refuse jar. Without a word Zorzi
took his place. While he warmed the end of his blow-pipe at the 'bocca'
he looked to right and left to see where the working-stool and marver
were placed, and to be sure that the few tools he needed were at hand,
the pontil, the 'procello,'--that is, the small elastic tongs for
modelling--and the shears. Piero's apprentice had retired to a distance,
as he had received no special orde