The chainmaker consented with a grunt.

He wound the wire prepared by his wife round a mandrel, a very thin steel rod.

Then he sawed gently, cutting the wire the whole length of the mandrel, each turn forming a link, which he soldered.

The links were laid on a large piece of charcoal.

He wetted them with a drop of borax, taken from the bottom of a broken glass beside him; and he made them red-hot at the lamp beneath the horizontal flame produced by the blow-pipe.