"Certainly, if you would like to hear. This glass-maker made a cup for
the Emperor and tried a long time to get an audience at which to
present his new invention. Then at last the chance came, and thinking
to make himself famous the artisan contrived, as he passed the flagon
to his sovereign, to drop it on the marble floor. Of course every one
thought the glass was broken, and that is precisely what the
glass-maker wanted them to think. He picked it up, smoothed out with
his hammer the dent made in its side, and passed it once more expecting
to receive praise for his wonderful deed. Tiberius eyed him silently.
Then he asked; 'Does any one else know how to make glass like this?'

"'No one,' answered the glass-maker.

"'Off with his head at once!' cried the enraged monarch. 'If glass
dishes and flasks do not break they will soon become as valuable as my
gold and silver ones!'

"Despite his protests the poor glass-maker was dragged off and
beheaded. The rulers of those days were not very fair-minded, you see."

With so many interesting stories, and so many things to see, you may be
sure that neither Jean nor Giusippe found sightseeing dull. And the
next day Uncle Bob was as good as his word, and took the young people
to the British Museum, where he showed them some of the old Egyptian
and Graeco-Syrian glass. There were little vases, cups, and flasks of
wonderful iridescent color, as well as many glass beads that had been
found upon Egyptian mummies.

"Now, Uncle Bob," Jean said, after they had looked at these strange old
bits of glass for some time, "you must take us to see the Portland
Vase. You promised you would, you know."

"Sure enough; so I did. I should have forgotten it, too, had you not
mentioned it."

Accordingly they hunted up the Gold Room where the vase stood.

Jean was very proud that she was able to point it out before she had
been told which one it was.

"You see," explained she shyly, "it is so much like the Naples Vase
that I recognized it right off."

It was indeed of the same dark blue transparent glass, and had on it
the same sort of delicate white cameo figures.

"This vase," Mr. Cabot said, "was found about the middle of the
sixteenth century enclosed in a marble sarcophagus in an underground
chamber which was located two and a half miles out of Rome. It was
taken to the Barbarini Palace, but later the princess of that noble
family, wishing to raise money, sold it to Sir William Ham