At this moment, the noise burst forth from the middle of the enormous shed, of several beats of a gong: so loud, that they even drowned the thundering inquiries with which Mr. Bossle was teasing one of the "teasers." In an instant the men hastened to a focus, like giants in a Christmas pantomime about to perform some wonderful conjuration; and not a whisper was heard. "Aha!" exclaimed the director, "they are going to cast. This way, gentlemen!" The kitchen in which the Ogre threatened to cook Jack and his seven brothers could not have been half so formidable an apartment as the enormous cuisine into which we were led. One end was occupied with a row of awful ovens; in the midst, stood a stupendous iron table; and upon it lay a rolling-pin, so big, that it could only be likened to half-a-dozen garden-rollers joined together at their ends. Above, was an iron crane or gallows to lift the enormous messes of red-hot gruel, thick and slab, which were now to be brought from the furnaces. "Stand clear!" A huge basin, white with heat, approaches, on a sort of iron hurley; at one end of which sits, triumphant, a salamander, in human form, to balance the Plutonian mass, as it approaches on its wheeled car--playing with it--a game of see-saw. It stops at the foot of the iron gallows. Mr. Bossle approaches to see what it is, and discovers it to be a cuvette filled with molten glass, glowing from the fiery furnace. What is that man doing with a glazed mask before his face? "Why, if you will believe me," exclaims Mr. Bossle, in the tones of a speaking-trumpet (we are at a prudent distance), "he is ladling off the scum, as composedly as if it were turtle-soup!" Mr. Bossle grows bold, and ventures a little nearer. Rash man! His nose is assuredly scorched; he darts back, and takes off his spectacles, to ascertain how much of the frames are melted. The dreadful pot is lifted by the crane. It is poised immediately over the table; a workman tilts it; and out pours a cataract of molten opal which spreads itself, deliberately, like infernal sweet-stuff, over the iron table; which is spilled and slopped about, in a crowd of men, and touches nobody. "And has touched nobody since last year, when one poor fellow got the large shoes he wore, filled with white-hot glass." Then the great rolling-pin begins to "roll it out." But, those two men, narrowly inspecting every inch of the red hot sheet as the roller approaches it--is their skin salamandrine? are their eyes fire-proof? "They are looking," we are told, "for any accidental impurity that may be still intruding in the vitrifaction, and, if they can tear it out with their long pincers before the roller has passed over it, they are rewarded. From the shape these specks assume in being torn away, they are called 'tears.'" When the roller has passed over the table, it leaves a sheet of red-hot glass, measuring some twelve feet by seven.