Lawrence looked astonished. "In that case,"
said he, "when people get in their winter's supply of fuel, and
grumble at the cost, they might console themselves by thinking that
the biggest part of what they burn they get for nothing; it don't have
to come in carts, and they don't have to settle the bill for it."
"And boys of your age don't get the back-ache
shoveling it in at the cellar window," said the Doctor. "It comes, as
a great many of our blessings do, so bountifully and so invisibly,
that we don't appreciate it. It is well to stop and think of such
things sometimes."
"Now," said the gaffer, "I'll show you where
the melting-pots are made."
III.
THE MELTING-POTS.
Emerging from the cave, they crossed a corner
of the yard, and entered a long brick building, in the first room of
which they found a man at work, on a low bench, in the midst of piles
of rubbish.
"Here is where the clay of the pots that have
been used up in the furnaces is broken up and cleaned. This man, as
you see, takes up a piece at a time, and knocks off the glazed side,
and the side that has been in contact with the fire. Then it is ready
to be pounded up, and used over again."
They passed on to a second room, which was long
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