I can trust you, for we have worked together a long time, and I am used
to hearing what you have to say."

"You have always been very good to me," replied Zorzi gratefully.

"You have always been faithful to me," said the old man, laying his hand
gently on Zorzi's shoulder. "I know what that means in this world."

As soon as there was no question of opposing his despotic will, his
kindly nature asserted itself, for he was a man subject to quick
changes of humour, but in reality affectionate.

"I am going to trust you much more than hitherto," he continued. "My
sons are grown men, independent of me, but willing to get from me all
they can. If they were true artists, if I could trust their taste, they
should have had my secrets long ago. But they are mere money-makers, and
it is better that they should enrich themselves with the tasteless
rubbish they make in their furnaces, than degrade our art by cheapening
what should be rare and costly. Am I right?"

"Indeed you are!" Zorzi now spoke in a tone of real conviction.

"If I thought you were really capable of making coloured drinking-cups
like that abominable object you made this morning, with the idea that
they could ever be used, you should not stay on Venetian soil a day,"
resumed the old man energetically. "You would be as bad as my sons, or
worse. Even they have enough sense to know that half the beauty of a
cup, when it is used, lies in the colour of the wine itself, which must
be seen through it. But I forgive you, because you were only anxious to
blow the glass thin, in order to show me the tint. You know better. That