Excerpt from Short Story Classics, Vol. 3: American But when the metal had been cast, and the earthen mold separated from the glowing casting, it was dis covered that, despite their great labor and ceaseless care, the result was void of worth; for the metals had rebelled one against the other - the gold had scorned alliance with the brass, the silver would not mingle with the molten iron. Therefore the molds had to be once more prepared, and the fires rekindled, and the metal remelted, and all the work tediously and toil somely repeated. The Son of Heaven heard and was angry, but spake nothing. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.