hole under it, and disappearing.

Beyond the foul avenues thridding the region of the works, and
smelling of the decay of market-houses, were fine streets of
shops and churches, and I dare say comely dwellings, with tram-
cars ascending and descending their hilly slopes. The stores I
find noted as splendid, and in my pocket-book I say that outside
of the market-house, before you got to those streets, there are
doves and guinea-pigs as well as a raven for sale in cages; and
the usual horrible English display of flesh meats. The trams were
one story, like our trolleys, without roof-seats, and there were
plenty of them; but nothing could keep me, I suppose, till I had
seen one of the works. Each of these stands in a vast yard, or
close, by itself, with many buildings, and they are of all sorts;
but I chose what I thought the most typical, and overcame the
reluctance of the manager to let me see it. He said I had no idea
what tricks were played by other makers to find out any new
processes and steal them; but this was after I had pleaded my
innocent trade of novelist, and assured him of my congenital
incapability of understanding, much less conveying from the
premises, the image of the simplest and oldest process. Then he
gave me for guide an intelligent man who was a penknife-maker by
trade, but was presently out of work, and glad to earn my fee.

My guide proved a most decent, patient, and kindly person, and I
hope it is no betrayal of confidence to say that he told me the
men in these multitudinous shops work by the piece. The grinders
furnish their grindstones and all their tools for making the
knives; there is no dry grinding, such as used to fill the lungs
of the grinders with deadly particles of steel and stone, and