testing was placed, and thrust the ladle into the aperture,
holding it lightly lest the heat should hurt his hand.

"You shall not do that!" cried Zorzi, who was already beside him.

Before Giovanni knew what was happening Zorzi had struck the ladle from
his hand, and it disappeared through the 'bocca' into the white-hot
glass within.

CHAPTER IX

With an oath Giovanni raised his hand to strike Zorzi in the face, but
the quick Dalmatian snatched up his heavy blow-pipe in both hands and
stood in an attitude of defence.

"If you try to strike me, I shall defend myself," he said quietly.

Giovanni's sour face turned grey with fright, and then as his impotent
anger rose, the grey took an almost greenish hue that was bad to see. He
smiled in a sickly fashion. Zorzi set the blow-pipe upright against the
furnace and watched him, for he saw that the man was afraid of him and
might act treacherously.

"You need not be so violent," said Giovanni, and his voice trembled a
little, as he recovered himself. "After all, my father would not have
made any objection to my trying the glass. If I had, I could not have
guessed how it was made."

Zorzi did not answer, for he had discovered that silence was his best
weapon. Giovanni continued, in the peevish tone of a man who has been
badly frightened and is ashamed of it.

"It only shows how ignorant you are of glass-making, if you suppose that
my father would care." As he still got no reply beyond a shrug of the
shoulders, he changed the subject. "Did you see my father make any of
those things?" he asked, pointing to the shelves.

"No," answered Zorzi.

"But he made them all here, did he not?" insisted Giovanni. "And you are
always with him."

"He did not make any of them."

Giovanni opened his eyes in astonishment. In his estimation there was no
man living, except his father, who could have done such work. Zorzi
smiled, for he knew what the other's astonishment meant.

"I made them all," he said, unable to resist the temptation to take the
credit that was justly his.

"You made those things?" repeated Giovanni incredulously.

But Zorzi was not in the least offended by his disbelief. The more
sceptical Giovanni was, the greater the honour in having produced
anything so rarely beautiful.

"I made those, and many others which the master keeps in his house," he
said.

Giovanni would have liked to give him the lie, but he dared not just
then.

"If you made the