ruck against the wall and
came splashing down over the whole big room. Father Bear let the boy
watch the gorgeous spectacle until the blowing was over and the flowing
and sparkling red steel had been poured into ingot moulds.

The boy was completely charmed by the marvellous display and almost
forgot that he was imprisoned between a bear's two paws.

Father Bear let him look into the rolling mill. He saw a workman take a
short, thick bar of iron at white heat from a furnace opening and place
it under a roller. When the iron came out from under the roller, it was
flattened and extended. Immediately another workman seized it and placed
it beneath a heavier roller, which made it still longer and thinner.
Thus it was passed from roller to roller, squeezed and drawn out until,
finally, it curled along the floor, like a long red thread.

But while the first bar of iron was being pressed, a second was taken
from the furnace and placed under the rollers, and when this was a
little along, a third was brought. Continuously fresh threads came
crawling over the floor, like hissing snakes. The boy was dazzled by the
iron. But he found it more splendid to watch the workmen who,
dexterously and delicately, seized the glowing snakes with their tongs
and forced them under the rollers. It seemed like play for them to
handle the hissing iron.

"I call that real man's work!" the boy remarked to himself.

The bear then let the boy have a peep at the furnace and the forge, and
he became more and more astonished as he saw how the blacksmiths handled
iron and fire.

"Those men have no fear of heat and flames," he thought. The workmen
were sooty and grimy. He fancied they were some sort of firefolk--that
was why they could bend and mould the iron as they wished. He could not
believe that they were just ordinary men, since they had such power!

"They keep this up day after day, night after night," said Father Bear,
as he dropped wearily down on the ground. "You can understand that one
gets rather tired of that kind of thing. I'm mighty glad that at last I
can put an end to it!"

"Indeed!" said the boy. "How will you go about it?"

"Oh, I thought that you were going to set fire to the buildings!" said
Father Bear. "That would put an end to all this work, and I could remain
in my old home."

The boy was all of a shiver.

So it was for this that Father Bear had brought him here!

"If you will set fire to the noise-works, I'll promise