"If I seemed astonished," he said, "it may have been because you had just given me the impression that the master did not trust you, and I know how careful he is of the manuscript."
"You know more than that, my friend," said Giovanni in a playful tone.
Zorzi had now filled the crucible and was replacing the clay rings which narrow the aperture of the 'bocca.' He plastered more wet clay upon them, and it pleased Giovanni to see how well he knew every detail of the art, from the simplest to the most difficult operations.
"Would anything you can think of induce you to leave my father?" Giovanni asked, as he had received no answer to his last remark. "Of course, I do not mean to speak of mere money, though few people quite despise it."
"That may be understood in more than one way," answered Zorzi cautiously. "In the first place, do you mean that if I left the master, it would be to go to another master, or to set up as a master myself?"
"Let us say that you might go to another glass-house for a fixed time, with the promise of then having a furnace of your own. How does that strike you?"
"No one can give such a promise and keep it," said Zorzi, scraping the wet clay from his hands with a blunt knife.
"But suppose that some one could," insisted Giovanni.
"What is the use of supposing the impossible?" Zorzi shrugged his shoulders and went on scraping.
"Nothing is impossible in the Republic, except what the Ten are resolved to hinder. And that is really impossible."