There is your little inkstand, beginning its journey in grand
company,-- fruit-dishes, and ruby and blue lamp-shades, which look
pretty enough under the rolling flames. I 'll put your ruby cups near
them, and leave directions at the other end with the man who will take
them out; he will bring them to me."
"How long will it take them to go through?"
"About twenty-four hours. The fire is at this
end of the oven. As the articles pass through, they cool very slowly,
and come out almost cold at the other end. In this way we give the
particles of glass time to get acquainted, and to nestle together
comfortably and contentedly before they harden. That makes them fast
friends. Your cups and inkstand would be apt to break the first time
you used them if they were not annealed."
"I see you send nearly everything to the leers,
except lamp-chimneys," said the Doctor.
"Yes. The thinner the glass the less liable it
is to crack from exposure to heat and cold. The lamp-chimneys are of
such uniform thinness throughout that we don't consider it necessary
to anneal them."
"I advise you to anneal them," said the Doctor.
"I believe we have cracked half a dozen in my house within a week or
two, and we are getting tired of them. I am quietly reading my newspaper
of an evening, when-- snap!-- another broken chimney."
"That's because you don't buy your chimneys of
us," said the gaffer, laughing.
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