ke, you will be shewn in. You need not
mention my name nor your own. I do not ask you to share my repast, far my
food is not suitable to others--to you least of all, if your appetite is
what it used to be."

At nine o'clock I paid my call, and found he had grown a beard two inches
long. He had a score of retorts before him, full of liquids in various
stages of digestion. He told me he was experimenting with colours for his
own amusement, and that he had established a hat factory for Count
Cobenzl, the Austrian ambassador at Brussels. He added that the count had
only given him a hundred and fifty thousand florins, which were
insufficient. Then we spoke of Madame d'Urfe.

"She poisoned herself," said he, "by taking too strong a dose of the
Universal Medicine, and her will shews that she thought herself to be
with child. If she had come to me, I could have really made her so,
though it is a difficult process, and science has not advanced far enough
for us to be able to guarantee the sex of the child."

When he heard the nature of my disease, he wanted me to stay three days
at Tournay for him to give me fifteen pills, which would effectually cure
me, and restore me to perfect health. Then he shewed me his magistrum,
which he called athoeter. It was a white liquid contained in a
well-stoppered phial. He told me that this liquid was the universal
spirit of nature, and that if the wax on the stopper was pricked ever so
lightly, the whole of the contents would disappear. I begged him to make
the experiment. He gave me the phial and a pin, and I pricked the wax,
and to lo! the phial was empty.

"It is very fine," said I, "but what good is all this?"

"I cannot tell you; that is my secret."

He wanted to astonish me before I went, and asked me if I had any money
about me. I took out several pieces and put them on the table. He got up,
and without saying what he was going to do he took a burning coal and put
it on a metal plate, and placed a twelve-sols piece with a small black
grain on the coal. He then blew it, and in two minutes it seemed on fire.

"Wait a moment," said the alchemist, "let it get cool;" and it cooled
almost directly.

"Take it; it is yours," said he.

I took up the piece of money and found it had become gold. I felt
perfectly certain that he had smuggled my silver piece away, and had
substituted a gold piece coated with silver for it. I did not care to
tell him as much, but to let him see that I was n