could have been possible for the amiable and pious Court
apothecary to give utterance to such objurgations and invectives, such
sacrilegious curses and anathemas, and how she, a respectable and proper
woman, of good Leipsic people, ever could have allowed herself to attack
any one, least of all her excellent master, in such abusive language
were problems she could never solve.

Yet they must not be censured for their use of Billingsgate, for the
strong aroma of the elixir forced them to tear aside the veil which
in Leipsic, as elsewhere, clothes the ugly truth as with a pleasing
garment, and to lay bare all the rancour that filled their hearts.

Later when she thought about the breaking of the phial, the conviction
grew upon her limited intelligence that this accident would perhaps
prove in the end to be the best thing that could have happened, not
only for her but for all mankind. To her excellent master, at least,
the Elixir of Truth proved fatal all too soon; the intense excitement
of that night had shaken him so cruelly that before the day dawned the
feeble flame of his life had flickered out.

Frau Vorkel found him dead the next morning in his laboratory. He must
have gone thither to seek once more for the lost substance after she had
helped him to bed. Before he had begun his work he must have wished to
encourage himself by a glance at the portrait of his grandchild, for as
she opened the door the sheet of paper with the red crayon drawing was
wafted from the open chest, beside which her master had fallen, and
like a butterfly, fluttered down upon the heart that had ceased to beat
several hours before.

Six months after the death of the Court apothecary, Melchior Ueberhell
returned home and Frau Vorkel or, as she must now be called, Frau
Schimmel, was the only person to whom he wrote to announce the hour of
his arrival in Leipsic.

In his letter the young doctor begged her to undertake the
responsibility of engaging a man servant and a kitchen maid for him, and
of seeing that there was a fire laid on his hearth to welcome him. He
also asked "his faithful old friend" to nail up before the furnace
of the laboratory on the first floor the brass triangle which the
messenger, who brought the letter, would give to her. It was to be hung
with the face, bearing the numerals and the figures of animals, towards
the outside.

This news threw Frau Schimmel into a great state of excitement and
at the appointed hour ever