eemed better to
take out all the glass."

"May I see a piece of it?" inquired Giovanni, as if he were asking a
great favour.

It was one thing to let him test the glass himself, it was quite another
to show him a piece of it. He would see it sooner or later, and he could
guess nothing of its composition.

"The specimen is there, on the table," Zorzi answered.

Giovanni rose at once and took the piece from the paper on which it lay,
and held it up against the light. He was amazed at the richness of the
colour, and gave vent to all sorts of exclamations.

"Did you make this?" he asked at last.

"It is the result of the master's experiments."

"It is marvellous! He has made another fortune."

Giovanni replaced the specimen where it had lain, and as he did so, his
eye fell on the phial Zorzi had made that morning. Zorzi had not put it
into the annealing oven because it had been allowed to get quite cold,
so that the annealing would have been imperfect. Giovanni took it up,
and uttered a low exclamation of surprise at its lightness. He held it
up and looked through it, and then he took it by the neck and tapped it
sharply with his finger-nail.

"Take care," said Zorzi; "it is not annealed. It may fly."

"Oh!" exclaimed Giovanni. "Have you just made it?"

"Yes."

"It is the finest glass I ever saw. It is much better than what they had
in the main furnaces the day you were hurt. Did you not find it so
yourself, in working with it?"

Zorzi began to feel anxious as to the result of so much questioning.
Whatever happened he must hide from Giovanni the fact that he had
discovered a new glass of his own.

"Yes," he answered, with affected indifference. "I thought it was
unusually good. I daresay there may be some slight difference in the
proportions."

"Do you mean to say that my father does not follow any exact rule?"

"Oh yes. But he is always making experiments."

"He mixes all the materials for the main furnaces himself, does he not?"
inquired Giovanni.

"Yes. He does it alone, in the room that is kept locked. When he has
finished, the men come and carry out the barrows. The materials are
stirred and mixed together outside."

"Yes. I do it in the same way myself. Have you ever helped my father in
that work?"

"No, certainly not. If I had helped him once, I should know the secret."
Zorzi smiled.

"But if you do not know the secret," said Giovanni unexpectedly, "how
did you make this glass?"

He hel