to bed, and t' other set of hands comes on. We comes on again at
one in the afternoon, and works till six in the evening; then t' other
set takes our place, and works till midnight."
"How does the work agree with you? I could n't
stand the heat," said Lawrence, retreating still farther from the
furnace.
"Glass-blowers is as healthy and long-lived as
any class of men," was the reply. "I never takes cold, though some
does."
So saying, the workman, having lighted his short
clay pipe, took his long iron pipe,-- it was, perhaps, five feet long and
an inch in diameter,-- and thrust one end of it into the neck of a pot,
and commenced turning it.
"That is what we call gathering," said the gaffer.
When the workman had got what he judged to be a
sufficient quantity of the melted metal on the end of the iron,-- it was
a lump somewhat larger than a butternut,-- he took it out,and rolled it
on a small, polished iron table, which the gaffer said was a marver.
"A corruption of marbre, the French word
for marble," said the Doctor. "The English workmen got a good many terms
from the French and Italians, along with their trade. The marver used
to be made of marble or stone, did n't it, gaffer? and the name has gone
over to the iron slab."
The workman, having reduced the soft lump to a
shape suitable for his purpose, put the other end of
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