corner of his hole, blows and rolls it till the
result satisfies him, raises it aloft in the air in
sign of triumph, and with an iron punch
pushes down the soft yielding top, till it bears
a vast resemblance to the bottom of a wine-bottle.
He then, with dignity, hands it to his
grand garçon, and has never afterwards
anything to do with it, but receives from
the gamin a fresh lump of fire to dally with.

The grand garçon proceeds to the furnace;
and, with a tap on a shelf, there detaches the
would-be bottle from the blow-pipe. The
place at which it is broken is very like a neck.
The bottle is gently slipped into a little round
iron cage at the end of an iron wand, and is
once more shown into the inside of the furnace.
With another stick of iron the grand
garçon picks up a little bit of fire, or red-hot
treacle, and with it makes a rim, or band, or
cord round the neck. A twist with a pair of
pincers finishes the whole; and it actually is
at last a real claret bottle, like those that
stood upon our dinner-table to-day, with the
simple difference of being at a slightly higher
temperature. The big attendant delivers his
finished article to the gamin, who bears it
on high, like a shining cresset, and cuts away
with it round the same dark dingy comer,
behind which our Hebe makes her exits and
her entrances.

A souffleur glaring upon me with an eye
which was not malevolent, put the question, in
plain French, whether I should like to have
a blow at his pipe. Why not? By all means.
So I had the honour of officiating at his
altar, and at last produced a specimen of
black bottle, which would be refused admission
at many fashionable tables. " Try again,
monsieur. Better next time." I did try
again, and did improve; though, even the
improved bottle was a bit of a curiosity,
which ought to have a place in some very
select bin. But it still remains hidden in the
book of fate, what bon-vivant is destined to
be astonished by that elegant pair of bourdelaises ;
for the gamin carried them straight
away with the rest.

And why didn't I set them by to cool, to
be brought home in my pocket as souvenirs
of the verrerie? I might have set them by
to cool, but as to bringing them home, that
would have been by no means an easy matter
—unless you can suggest some method of
keeping the inside of the pocket of my
paletot, in which they were to travel, at a
red heat for four successive days and nights.
Every individual bottle is obliged to remain
that time in the annealing oven, or it will
fly and crack at the least touch and look
exactly like a bit of glass gone mad. Only
observe how careful the gamins are to warm
their iron cage, before they venture to receive
a red-hot bottle in it.

This necessity that glass utensils should be
subjected to a long and gradual cooling, is a
curious fact whose explanation has not, as far
as I know, been demonstrated. The fragility
of suddenly cooled glass shall be exhibited
to you in one single minute. The gamin of
the souffleur of whom we have been taking a
lesson in glass-blowing, dips his hand into the
pail, and fishes out what he calls some larmes
de verre, or tears of glass, very like the painted
tears which you saw on the gravestones in
the cemetery, and which (the glass, not the
painted tears) are known in England as Prince
Rupert's drops. They are small pear-shaped
lumps, with a long fine hair-like tail. These
drops the gamin presents to us as a mark of
friendship. Take the bulb of one of them in
your hand; do not be afraid, it will not hurt
you. I seize the neck part, break it off short;
and snap!—you now hold nothing but a few
pinches of greenish powder. The tear of
glass has exploded into dust!

We may suppose that this is the result of
the shape and arrangement of the elementary
atoms, or ultimate crystals of which glass is
composed. Suppose them to be cubical, or
like so many dice. If they were packed
together side by side, and symmetrically, they
would bear carriage and retain their places
quietly enough. But a box full of dice nicely
balanced upon and against each other, corner
to corner, or edge to edge, would be
disarranged with a rattle at the merest touch.
We know that expansion and contraction,
and therefore different arrangements of the
component atoms, are produced by heat and
cold in all the bodies; and it is possible that
the respective position of the atoms of red-hot
semi-fluid glass may be something like
that of dice placed edge to edge. At most, I
only presume to guess.

It is not easy to tire of watching this bold
and dexterous industry, although we must
own that it makes the eyes ache. We could
have staid from that time to this, gazing away
without interruption; for fires like the one
which was glowing there are not put out, or
lighted again, in a violent hurry. The production
of bottles goes on continually, throughout
the whole twenty-four hours that make up
the natural day. There are night souffleurs,
grands garçons, and gamins, just as there
are members of the same profession with
diurnal habits; and we may assume, without
great fear of error, that a nice little night
Hebe is also there, to fulfil her charitable
office of giving drink to the thirsty. But
other matters invite our attention, and we
are tempted to peep round the mysterious
corner.

Whether in tracking a mountain valley, or
in wandering through the streets of an unknown
city; whether in following the incidents
of a truthlike romance, or in looking
out for the still stranger events that successively
chequer the course of real life—the
unseen something which lurks beyond the
nearest turning is always that which attracts
us onwards. Here, a few steps beyond the
row of altars show the solid squareness of
the central furnace; and a few paces still