“Now, we’ll go over to the crucible furnace.”
They walked slowly across the yard.
“There are no giants here,” said Mr. Prescott, “with the exception of the furnaces in which they set the crucibles; and they are small, compared with the furnaces that we have seen.”
They found themselves in a long room lined with shelves of clay crucibles, about eighteen inches in height. On the sides of the room, under the shelves, were rows of small furnaces, each large enough for two crucibles.
“The crucible process,” said Mr. Prescott, “gives us our finest steels. It is a simple melting together of iron and charcoal. The carbon of the charcoal passes into the iron. When the crucibles are filled, they are set in the furnace, and left for several days.
“They make a special kind of crucible steel over in Sheffield.”
While he was saying that, Mr. Prescott glanced at Billy, but Billy was looking at the furnace, and did not hear what Mr. Prescott said.
Mr. Prescott looked at him hard, as he said:
“The home of the crucible is Sheffield.”
“Sheffield,” said Billy, turning, “is where they make good jack-knives.”