A piece of smooth morocco, which has no grain, or from which the grain has been entirely removed by wetting the leather and rolling it with a rolling-pin on a marble slab, or smooth board, or glass, or by rubbing it well with a blunt folder,

is selected. A slip of the width between the bands is now set off with the compass, and cut off with a sharp-pointed knife on the cutting-board. Each edge of this is pared very carefully, and pieces are accurately cut off the slip of the width necessary for the various volumes, each of these has now its other two edges carefully pared. The lettering pieces are then well pasted over with good thick paste, stuck on the proper place, and well beaten and rubbed down with the folder. Scarlet, bright green, or purple, and occasionally blue, are the colors usually chosen for lettering pieces. Where there are two, they are generally of different colors.

Half-bound books have their sides covered with cloth or marbled paper, the first being the more substantial. Either is folded and cut to the shape of Fig. 116, so as to allow enough to turn over and to permit sufficient of the corner to show.

The corner space must be of the same size on both sides. The cloth sides are glued as previously described; the marbled paper sides are pasted with thin paste. Both should be carefully rubbed down, and made nicely square and sharp over the edges of the board with the folder.

The cloth is usually selected to match the leather in color and (if morocco) in grain as far as possible. Some binders think that the sides of half calf should contrast, but this is not good taste. Marbled paper should match the end-papers and edges. The new leatherette, feltine, &c., may at times be used advantageously.

Cloth Binding -The covers are cut out, like the leather ones, a little larger than the size of the book, to allow for turning in. They are then each rolled up with the hand the contrary way to what they have been in the roll. This is to take the curvature out of them, and make them lie flat. Each one is now laid, right side down, upon the gluing-board, and is lightly but completely glued over. To make a good job of this, it is indispensable that the glue should be in good condition. In the first place, it should be thoroughly melted, and so thin that it will run easily from the brush when the latter is raised from the glue-pot. But it may be all this, and still be stripy and scummy when applied, as the grain of the cloth offers some obstacle to complete distribution. To" cut up" the glue, therefore, it is best to take the glue-brush (which should be a good sized one) out of the pot while filled with glue, dab it down on a piece of waste brown paper, and, with the handle between the open palms of both hands, give the brush a rapid rotary motion, while held upright, for a few minutes. The brush is then replaced in the pot and the same motion imparted to it. In a few minutes the glue-pot will be filled with froth. The glue is now well "cut up," and, if the cloth be rapidly but perfectly glued over, there will be no streakiness, but the whole surface will look, as it were, frothy, as did the glue in the pot.

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