“Erema, you are a—well, you are a silly!” Major Hockin exclaimed, and then colored with remembering that rather he should have let my lapse pass. But the lapidary seemed to pay no attention, only to be calling down to some one far below. “Now mind what you say,” the Major whispered to me, just as if he were the essence of discretion.
“The work-room is clear now,” Mr. Handkin said; “the fellows were delighted to get their afternoon. Now you see that I have to take off this hoop, and there lies the difficulty. I could have taken out the gold back, as I said, with very little trouble, by simply cutting it. But the locket would never have been quite the same, though we put a new back; and, more than that, the pressure of the tool might flaw the enamel, or even crack the portrait, for the make of this thing is peculiar. Now first I submit the rim or verge, without touching the brilliants, mind you, to the action of a little preparation of my own—a gentle but penetrative solvent. You are welcome to watch me; you will be none the wiser; you are not in the trade, though the young lady looks as if she would make a good polisher. Very well: if this were an ordinary closure, with two flat surfaces meeting, the solvent would be absorbed into the adhesion, expansion would take place, and there we have it. But this is what we call a cyme-joint, a cohesion of two curved surfaces, formed in a reflex curve which admits the solvent most reluctantly, or, indeed, not at all, without too long application. For that, then, another kind of process is needful, and we find it in frictional heat applied most gradually and judiciously. For that I must have a buff-leather wheel, whose revolutions are timed to a nicety, and that wheel I only have in this room. Now you see why I sent the men away.”
Though I watched his work with great interest, it is out of my power to describe it now, and, moreover, it is not needful. Major Hockin, according to his nature, grew quite restless and impatient, and even went out for a walk, with his cane unpacked and unsheathed against cabmen. But I was content to wait and watch, having always heard and thought that good work will not do itself, but must have time and skill to second it. And Mr. Handkin, moving arms, palms, and fingers beautifully, put the same thought into words.
“Good work takes a deal of time to do; but the man that does it all the time knows well that it will take long to undo. Here it comes undone at last!”
As he spoke, the excitable Major returned.
“Done it, eh? Well, you are a clever fellow. Now don't look inside it; that is no part of your business, nor mine either, unless this young lady desires it. Hand it to her first, my friend.”
“Wait half a minute,” said the lapidary; “it is so far opened that the hoop spins round, but it must not be taken off until it cools. The lady may lift it then with care. I have done this job as a piece of fine art; I have no wish to see any more of it.”
“Handkin, don't you be so touchy to a brother Cornishman. I thought that I was Cornish enough, but you go cliffs beyond me.”
“Well, Major Hockin,” the lapidary answered, “I beg your pardon, if I said harm. But a man doing careful and skilled work—and skilled work it is, at every turn of the hand, as miss can bear witness, while you walked off—he don't care who it is, Major Hockin, he would fight his own brother to maintain it.”
“Very well, very well. Let us come away. I always enter into every body's feelings. I see yours as clearly, Handkin, as if you had laid them open on that blessed wheel. My insight has always been remarkable. Every one, without exception, says that of me. Now come away, come away—will you never see?”