"Why don't you do all your plating in that
way?" asked Lawrence.
"We do, unless we wish to produce the effect
you have noticed on the lamp-shades. For that the ruby must be on
the outside. The transparent figures are cut through it into the
clear glass,-- as you will see when you visit the cutting-room."
The gaffer then presented the two cups to
Lawrence,-- one for himself, and one for his little cousin at home.
"But," said he, "they must be annealed before
you can take them."
"What is annealing?"
"Come this way," said the gaffer. "This is
the leer. Look in."
Lawrence looked in through the wreaths of
thin, undulating flames that poured out of the mouth of the oven,
or flowed away in graceful waves and curves under the long, low
vault within, and saw a thickly clustered row of glass articles
stretching far away towards an opening where daylight shone at the
opposite end of the leer.
"Here are four leers," said the gaffer,
"two on each side of this passage. From this end, where the glass
goes in, to the other, where it is taken out, the distance is eighty
feet. The glass is placed on pans, which are hooked together; so
that, when one is drawn forward at the other end, that draws the whole
string forward. When a pan is emptied at that end, it is sent back,
and hooked on and filled again at this end.
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