"I want some small pieces of glass, made specially—"
"Beads? Of course, gentlemen. Look." The glass manufacturer scooped up a handful of beads. "Look at the color! Emerald, turquoise, everything!" He picked up another bunch. "See here, the faces of the twelve apostles, one on each bead—"
"Not beads—"
"A beaker, then! Here is one. Look, it has the Holy Family in high relief—"
"Jesus!" yelled Padway. "Will you listen?"
When Andronicus let Padway explain what he wanted, the Neapolitan said: "Of course! Fine! I've seen ornaments shaped like that. I'll rough them out tonight, and have them ready day after tomorrow—"
"That won't quite do," said Padway. "These have to have an exactly spherical surface. You grind a concave against a convex with—what's your word for emery? The stuff you use in rough grinding? Some naxium to true them off . . ."
Padway and Fritharik went on to Naples and put up at the house of Thomasus' cousin, Antiochus the Shipper. Their welcome was less than cordial. It transpired that Antiochus was fanatically Orthodox. He loathed his cousin's Nestorianism. His pointed remarks about heretics made his guests so uncomfortable that they moved out on the third day. They took lodgings at an inn whose lack of sanitation distressed Padway's cleanly soul.
Each morning they rode out to Puteoli to see how the lenses were coming. Andronicus invariably tried to sell them a ton of glass junk.
When they left for Rome, Padway had a dozen lenses, half plano-convex and half plano-concave. He was skeptical about the possibility of making a telescope by holding a pair of lenses in fine with his eye and judging the distances. It worked, though.