22 History of Gutta-Percha Witlte.

and two other men were making the axle of a
wheel. They had a great lump of red-hot iron on
the anvil, and were knocking a big hole through
it—not boring it, but knocking it through with a
big punch. One of the men, with a pair of tongs-
like pincers, held the punch steady in the hole,
while the other two struck the head of it with
alternate blows of mighty hammers called sledges,
each of which it took the strength of two brawny
arms to heave high above the head with a great
round swing over the shoulder, that it might come
down with right good force, and drive the punch
through the glowing iron, which was, I should
judge, four inches thick. All this Willie thought
he could understand, for he knew that fire made
the hardest metal soft; but what he couldn’t at all
understand was this: every now and then they
stopped heaving their mighty sledges, the third
man took the punch out of the hole, and the smith
himself, whose name was Willet (and w/Z zt he
did with a vengeance, when he had anything on
the anvil before him), caught up his tongs in his
hand, then picked up a little bit of black coal with
the tongs, and dropped it into the hole where the
punch had been, where it took fire immediately
and blazed up. Then in went the punch again,
and again the huge hammering commenced, with
such bangs and blows, that the smith was wise
to. have no floor to his smithy, for they would