e,
already alloyed; the craftsmen first pulled it through the draw-plate to
obtain the correct size, being careful to anneal it five or six times to
keep it from breaking. It required a steady, strong hand, and plenty of
practice. His sister would not let her husband touch the wire-drawing
since he was subject to coughing spells. She had strong arms for it; he
had seen her draw gold to the fineness of a hair.

Lorilleux, seized with a fit of coughing, almost doubled up on his
stool. In the midst of the paroxysm, he spoke, and said in a choking
voice, still without looking at Gervaise, as though he was merely
mentioning the thing to himself:

"I'm making the herring-bone chain."

Coupeau urged Gervaise to get up. She might draw nearer and see. The
chainmaker consented with a grunt. He wound the wire prepared by his
wife round a mandrel, a very thin steel rod. Then he sawed gently,
cutting the wire the whole length of the mandrel, each turn forming
a link, which he soldered. The links were laid on a large piece of
charcoal. He wetted them with a drop of borax, taken from the bottom of
a broken glass beside him; and he made them red-hot at the lamp beneath
the horizontal flame produced by the blow-pipe. Then, when he had
soldered about a hundred links he returned once more to his minute work,
propping his hands against the edge of the _cheville_, a small piece of
board which the friction of his hands had polished. He bent each link
almost double with the pliers, squeezed one end close, inserted it in
the last link already in place and then, with the aid of a point opened
out again the end he had squeezed; and he did this with a continuous
regularity, the links joining each other so rapidly that the chain
gradually grew beneath Gervaise's gaze, without her being able to
follow, or well understand how it was done.

"That's the herring-bone chain," said Coupeau. "There's also the
long link, the cable, the plain ring, and the spiral. But that's the
herring-bone. Lorilleux only makes the herring-bone chain."

The latter chuckled with satisfaction. He exclaimed, as he continued
squeezing the links, invisible between his black finger-nails.

"Listen to me, Young Cassis! I was making a calculation this morning.
I commenced work when I was twelve years old, you know. Well! Can you
guess how long a herring-bone chain I must have made up till to-day?"

He raised his pale face, and blinked his red eye-lids.

"Twenty-six thous