"Little inks, Ma'am," was the laconic reply; and looking more narrowly at the tiny object, it proved to be one of the small portable inkstands used in writing-desks.
More explosions at a little distance, and two more men were found to be casting, in the same manner, small bottles of opaque white glass, resembling china, a quality produced by an admixture of bone-dust in the frit. These are the bottles dear to manufacturers of pomades, hair-oils, and various cosmetics, and Miselle turned round a cool one lying upon the ground, half-expecting to find a flourishing advertisement of a newly discovered Fontaine d'Or upon its back. She did not find it, but espied instead two pretty little fellows in a corner just beyond, one of whom might be twelve and his curly-haired junior not more than ten years old, who were gravely engaged in blowing chimneys for kerosene lamps, and quite successfully too, as a large box behind their bench amply proved,—these alone of all the articles mentioned not requiring to be passed through the leer.
A little farther on, a workman, loading his pontil, by repeated dippings, with a large quantity of glass, dropped the lump into an open basin hollowed in the surface of one of the iron tables. It was here suffered to cool for some moments, and then, by means of a pontil tipped with molten glass, carried away to be fire-polished.
This was a lens, such as are used to increase the light in ships' cabins, staterooms, etc. Another and coarser quality, not lenses, but simple disks of greenish glass, about four inches in thickness by twelve in diameter, were stacked ready for removal at a short distance, and the whole association made Miselle so intolerably sea-sick that she sidled away to watch the manufacture of some decanters, "sech as is used in bar-rooms, mostly, Ma'am," as the principal workman confided to her. These were first moulded in the shape of great tumblers with an excessively ugly pattern printed on the sides, then softened in a glory-hole, and brought to a workman, who, by means of plyers and battledoor, elongated and shaped the neck, leaving a queer, ragged lip at the top. The decanter was then passed to Miselle's confidant, who struck off this lip with the edge of his plyers. An attendant then presented to him a lump of melted glass on the end of his pontil, and the workman, deftly twisting it round the neck of his decanter, clipped it off with a pair of scissors, and proceeded to smooth and shape it by means of the plyers.
These decanters were probably to be used in conjunction with some Gothic goblets, whose press stood in the immediate vicinity. These were greenish in color, thick and unwieldly in shape, and ornamented with alternate panels of vertical and horizontal stripes.
Miselle was still lost in contemplation of these goblets when Monsieur approached.
"No," exclaimed she, pointing at them,—"no true patriot should congratulate his countrymen upon the plenitude of such articles as that! Far better for the national growth in art that we should all revert to clam-shells!"
"Come, then, and see if we cannot find something more to your fancy in the cutting-room," laughed Monsieur; and Miselle willingly followed through the green yard, and up some stairs to a sunny chamber, or rather hall, lined on either hand with a row of busy workmen, each seated behind a whirring wheel, to which he held the surface of whatever article he was engaged in cutting, or rather grinding.
These wheels were arranged in a progressive order. The first were of stone or iron, fed with sand and water, which trickled slowly down upon them from a trough overhead. These rapidly cut away the surface of glass presented to them, leaving it rough and opaque. The article was next presented to a smooth grindstone, that removed the roughness, and left the appearance of fine ground glass.
The next process, called polishing, was effected upon a wooden wheel, fed with pumice or rotten-stone and water, and the final touch was given by another wooden wheel, and a preparation of tin and lead called putty-powder.