varia the adepts are more numerous
yet.

"Have they rediscovered the incomparable secret of antiquity? In spite
of certain affirmations, it is hardly probable. Nobody need manufacture
artificially a metal whose origins are so unaccountable that a deposit
is likely to be found anywhere. For instance, in a law suit which took
place at Paris in the month of November, 1886, between M. Popp,
constructor of pneumatic city clocks, and financiers who had been
backing him, certain engineers and chemists of the School of Mines
declared that gold could be extracted from common silex, so that the
very walls sheltering us might be placers, and the mansards might be
loaded with nuggets!

"At any rate," he continued, smiling, "these sciences are not
propitious."

He was thinking of an old man who had installed an alchemic laboratory
on the fifth floor of a house in the rue Saint Jacques. This man, named
Auguste Redoutez, went every afternoon to the Bibliotheque Nationale and
pored over the works of Nicolas Flamel. Morning and evening he pursued
the quest of the "great work" in front of his furnace.

The 16th of March the year before, he came out of the Bibliotheque with
a man who had been sitting at the same table with him, and as they
walked along together Redoutez declared that he was finally in
possession of the famous secret. Arriving in his laboratory, he threw
pieces of iron into a retort, made a projection, and obtained crystals
the colour of blood. The other examined the salts and made a flippant
remark. The alchemist, furious, threw himself upon him, struck him with
a hammer, and had to be overpowered and carried in a strait-jacket to
Saint Anne, pending investigation.

"In the sixteenth century, in Luxemburg, initiates were roasted in iron
cages. The following century, in Germany, they were clothed in rags and
hanged on gilded gibbets. Now that they are tolerated and left in peace
they go mad. Decidedly, fate is against them," Durtal concluded.

He rose and went to answer a ring at the door. He came back with a
letter which the concierge had brought. He opened it.

"Why, what is this?" he exclaimed. His astonishment grew as he read:

"Monsieur,

"I am neither an adventuress nor a seeker of adventures, nor am
I a society woman grown weary of drawing-room conversation. Even
less am I moved by the vulgar curiosity to find out whether an
author is the same in the flesh as he is in his books. Indeed