lue
spectacles speaks no English, and there is no one else within earshot.
But you are slightly in error about my ignorance of Spanish, Mr.
Cospatric!"

"Yes, yes; you know _y_ means 'and,' don't you, and that _si_
stands for 'yes,' and all the rest? But don't let's bother about that
now. Just marvel at this wonderful find. If the old gentleman had only
written 'R. Lully, His Book,' on the title-page or at the conclusion,
some bibliophile would have picked the thing up for a certainty, and
read it with the view of finding what I have found; and part of the
world's history would be different. But as it is, Lully happily omitted
his signature, and in consequence the memorandum of where the Recipe
could be found has never been read since the day it was written."

"But," broke in Weems, "what is this all about? I can't understand what
you are driving at, except that the book is a diary of Raymond Lully's,
whose name, of course, I recollect clearly enough now."

"My dear sir, whilst this old quack was trafficking with alchemy, and
trying to discover the elixir vital, or the philosopher's stone, or
some other myth like that, he accidentally found out a method whereby
common wood charcoal may be crystallized."

"What!" gasped the schoolmaster, "made into diamonds! Great heavens,
how was it done? Tell me quick."

"He doesn't give it here. This diary was evidently a private one which
he carried about with him, and it was liable to be destroyed. So he
wrote up the Recipe in a quiet place where no one would stumble on it,
and where, as he remarks, he could send his heir to if he thought fit
to do such a thing. But still, I don't think that there is much fear of
the secret having been given away. In the first place, we should
undoubtedly hear of it if any one was manufacturing real diamonds for
the market, as the diamond mines of the world are all known, and their
output most strictly regulated. And, in the second place, he had a
strong reason of his own for not divulging the formula. Listen, and
I'll read. 'If,' he says, 'diamonds were made common and cheap so that
the lower orders of people might obtain them, I can conceive that much
dissension would arise. For the nobles, finding their stored gems to
have become in a sudden of no richness, would be deeply embittered
thereby--they and their woman-kind. And the common folk, being able to
flaunt jewels equal to those of their betters, would wax arrogant and
dissatisfied; and