“What is it when it is cooked?” he asked, but his tone showed his delight with the workmanship.
“Most anything—a cake plate, a serving tray, a card receiver, a fruit holder—lots of things. But, isn’t it beautiful! Bardek made the design. I couldn’t do that; but I did all the hammering and annealing and filed all the silver. Bardek says he may not throw this one away.”
“It’s a beauty!” admitted Blynn. “A jim-dandy! By George, Gorgas, I certainly do admire this. But how will you ever take it home?”
The shadow of disappointment rested for a moment on her face; then she seemed to shake it off resolutely.
“He will sell it. It is only practice for me. I am learning. He uses it to teach me hammer strokes. I made the Varri stroke on that,” pointing proudly to the hundreds of soft hammer marks, “with the big hammer. It is not so heavy when you learn how to swing it. If I ever get to know how—well, I’ll have it in me; no one can take it away. Then I can make beautiful things wherever I am.... It is mean to have to sell things, though—give them to people you never see.”
“Yes, indeed,” he touched her hand lightly in understanding. “I know just how you feel.”
“So!” Bardek pounced upon them. “You are showing it off, eh? It is good; very, very good.” He said “vairy,” but this word, like others of his English vocabulary, had many pronunciations. “I am vairy proud of my pupil. Gorgas—” he emphasized the last syllable as if it were Gorgasse—“Gorgas is a golden child. She has gifts. You will see, some day. I have put some of my art into her. That!—the little marks there!—is harder than it looks! It is the stroke of the best workman and the biggest miser in Milan, G’sepp’ G’ovan’ Varri. I stole it from him. Ho! I go to him and say, ‘Please, Messer G’sepp’ G’ovan’ Varri, I am poor, I will carry charcoal and blow your fire and sweep your place and make the beds and cook you good macaroni and cut up cheeses, if you will but give me a place to sleep.’
“G’sepp’ G’ovan’ Varri, he storm and curse; say he have no room for beggars, and that he will not pay, he will not pay; but his ugly eye watch me and then he say, ‘Blow that fire, you—’ I will not say what he have said I am. On my honor, gentlemen and ladies,” saluting, “I am not that thing that G’sepp’ G’ovan’ Varri say I have been.
“Ach, Himmelreiche! How I work! I sweat and pull and dig and carry and—I watch! Tip, tip, tappy, tappy, tap—oh, so soft he play music by his hammer, the great hammer he make those soft touches. And he fires much, burns and hammers, burns and hammers. In two day I try, and he near catch me. In t’ree day I say, ‘Goodby, G’sepp’ G’ovan’ Varri! Your bed, it is too hard. I will just—skeedaddle! and take with me, oh, yes, jus’ a leetle somet’ing of a idea in my head.
“Before I leave I make a little gift of farewell: I make his secret strokes and it comes out a design, a great goose, and the taps on the wings spell ‘Varri.’