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This the boy snatched up and departed, while the man, suddenly rousing himself, began to roll the new pontil up and down the arms of his bench with his left hand, while with a pair of compasses in his right he carefully gauged the diameter of the revolving lantern, and then smoothed away its rough-cast edges by means of a blackened bit of wood, somewhat of the shape, and bearing the name, of a battledoor.
At the exact moment when the work was cool enough to stand he attached the pontil with its drop of liquid glass to the lower end, as he had done many a time in the laboratory, and before those who looked on could fully understand how he had done it without assistance, the long and heavy blow-pipe lay on the floor and Zorzi held his piece on the lighter pontil, heating it again at the fire.
It was then cracked off from the pontil and carried away, a finished liqueur-glass of the tiniest size, to be annealed. After this it might be used in its simple condition, or ornamented with engraving, while the bottom of the foot, still rough from contact with the pontil, was to be ground, smoothed, and then polished. "Oh, how lovely! Look, Miselle, at this ruby glass," cried out Optima.
With incredible speed the blower flattened its base upon a marver or table topped with sheet iron. A short iron rod or pontil was next fastened to the middle of the bottom of the pitcher in order that the blower might hold it, and after this had been done the blow-pipe was detached.
At the 'bocca' of the furnace he heated it, for it was cooling quickly; and he had his iron pontil ready, as there was no one to help him, and he easily performed the feat of taking a little hot glass on it from the pot and attaching it to the further end of the fast-cooling pear.
One of them was finishing a drinking-glass, rolling the pontil on the arms of the working-stool; another, a beetle-browed fellow, swung his long blow-pipe with its lump of glowing glass in a full circle, high in air and almost to touch the ground; another was at a 'bocca' in the low glare; all were busy, and the air was very hot and close. The men looked grim and ill-tempered.
"He will drop it," cried Miselle, as another boy, wielding a pontil with a lump of melted glass at the end, darted before her, and, pressing this heated end against the bottom of the lantern, picked it up and carried it away, over his shoulder, as if he were a stray member of some torch-light procession. "Not he! He's too well used to his trade," laughed Monsieur.
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.
"Now come and see the finishing process." Following the steps of the young wide-awake, Miselle saw him deliver the pontil, with the lantern still attached, to a listless individual seated upon a bench whose long iron arms projected far in front of him, while an idle pontil lay across them.
He was putting the finishing touches to a beaker of a new shape when the door opened, and Giovanni entered the laboratory. Zorzi was seated on the working stool, the pontil in one hand, the 'porcello' in the other. He glanced at Giovanni absently and went on, for it was the last touch and the glass was cooling quickly.
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