and low and gloomy, and contained several bins, in one of which a man
appeared, balancing himself on a bar laid across it, like a gymnast.
"It takes the very best quality of clay for
melting-pots," said the gaffer. "This comes from Stourbridge, in England.
It is first ground in that hopper, and mixed with the burnt clay, then
the whole is shoveled into one of these bins, and worked."
They turned to the gymnast, who, Lawrence now
saw, was treading a mass of moist clay with his naked feet. Before him
was an empty space, extending across the bin, into which he presently got
down, and shovelled back, upon the heap he had been treading, more clay
from a dense mass at the opposite end. Then he got up, steadying his
movements by means of the bar, and began to tread again.
"That don't seem to be very lively work," said
Lawrence.
"It's better than a treadmill," replied the man.
"There's variety about it. For variety I go to shovelling, and then
for variety I go to treading."
"But you don't keep at this all the while,--
do you?"
"When I begin a batch, I never leave it, except
to eat and sleep, till it 's finished. I can't give it any peace."
"How long do you work it?"
"About seven weeks." The man looked up at a
chalk-mark on the wall. "I have been five weeks on this."
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