Without desisting from their occupations they cast surprised glances at Giovanni and his companion, whom they all hated as a favoured person.  One of them was finishing a drinking-glass, rolling the pontil on the arms of the working-stool; another, a beetle-browed fellow, swung his long blow-pipe with its lump of glowing glass in a full circle, high in air and almost to touch the ground; another was at a ‘bocca’ in the low glare; all were busy, and the air was very hot and close.  The men looked grim and ill-tempered.

Giovanni explained the object of his coming in a way intended to conciliate them to himself at Zorzi’s expense.  Their presence gave him courage.

“This is Zorzi, the man without a name,” he said, “who is come from Dalmatia to give us a lesson in glass-blowing.”

One of the men laughed, and the apprentices tittered.  The others looked as if they did not understand.  Zorzi had known well enough what humour he should find among them, but he would not let the taunt go unanswered.

“Sirs,” he said, for they all claimed the nobility of the glass-blowers’ caste, “I come not to teach you, but to prove to the master’s son that I can make some trifle in the manner of your art.”

No one spoke.  The workmen in the elder Beroviero’s house knew well enough that Zorzi was a better artist than they, and they had no mind to let him outdo them at their own furnace.

“Will any one of you gentlemen allow me to use his place?” asked Zorzi civilly.

Not a man answered.  In the sullen silence the busy hands moved with quick skill, the furnace roared, the glowing glass grew in ever-changing shapes.

“One of you must give Zorzi his place,” said Giovanni, in a tone of authority.

The little foreman turned quite round in his chair and looked on.  There was no reply.  The pale men went on with their work as if Giovanni were not there, and Zorzi leaned calmly on his blow-pipe.  Giovanni moved a step forward and spoke directly to one of the men who had just dropped a finished glass into the bed of soft wood ashes, to be taken to the annealing oven.

“Stop working for a while,” he said.  “Let Zorzi have your place.”

“The foreman gives orders here, not you,” answered the man coolly, and he prepared to begin another piece.

Giovanni was very angry, but there were too many of the workmen, and he did not say what rose to his lips, but crossed over to the foreman.  Zorzi kept his place, waiting to see what might happen.

“Will you be so good as to order one of the men to give up his place?” Giovanni asked.

The old foreman smiled at this humble acknowledgment of his authority, but he argued the point before acceding.

“The men know well enough what Zorzi can do,” he answered in a low voice.  “They dislike him, because he is not one of us.  I advise you to take him to your own glass-house, sir, if you wish to see him work.  You will only make trouble here.”