"Yes. One of the experiments succeeded so well that it seemed 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."