"I guess you'll think so when you see all we have to do to it," agreed Henri. "I hope you won't mind the smell of the factory. It is horribly stifling, and makes some of the men sick at first. It is the oil and water in the silk. Silk must be damp for winding and spinning, otherwise it breaks. It is never, even at best, thoroughly dry, for it has the faculty of absorbing and holding moisture. Some time you'll learn more about how they have to allow for the moisture in silk when they weigh and ship it. Raw silk will often take up as much as thirty per cent. of its weight in moisture without any one suspecting it. Therefore, in order to be fair to the buyer who purchases his material by weight, they have in all great silk centres what they call silk-conditioning houses, where they test the goods to find out how much water is in it. This is done by an apparatus known as a _desiccator_, which tells what the silk would weigh if dry. To this estimate they add a definite percentage, ordinarily about eleven per cent., to total what the raw silk would weigh with a normal percentage of moisture. Every purchaser must expect to pay for some moisture in his material--that is, pay more for it than the silk itself actually weighs." Pierre regarded Henri mischievously. "There seems to be so much to learn that I do not believe I shall get through this mill to-day. Maybe I'll have to spend the night here." "I wish you could!" cried Henri. "Why didn't you plan to come home with me and stay until to-morrow?" "I couldn't be away over night, Henri," answered Pierre, "although it is kind of you to ask me; there is so much that I have to do at home." "Let us make haste then," Henri cried. "You have not seen anything yet, and the morning is passing." [Illustration] CHAPTER XII THE HOME-COMING