It had become his most precious possession; what was written on it meant a fortune as soon as he could get a furnace to himself; it was his own, and not the master's; it was wealth, it might even be fame.

Beroviero might call him to account for misusing the furnace, but that was no capital offence after all, and it was more than paid for by the single crucible of magnificent red glass.
Zorzi was attempting to reproduce that too, for he had the master's notes of what the pot had contained, and it was almost ready to be tried; he even had the piece of copper carefully weighed to be equal in bulk with the ladle that had been melted.

If he succeeded there also, that was a new secret for Beroviero, but the other was for himself.
All that morning he revelled in the delight of working with the new glass.

A marvellous dish with upturned edge and ornamented foot was the next thing he made, and he placed it at once in the annealing oven.

Then he made a tall drinking glass such as he had never made before, and then, in contrast, a tiny ampulla, so small that he could almost hide it in his hand, with its spout, yet decorated with all the perfection of a larger piece.