"Very well, if you insist upon it," said Le Glorieux. "In order to be easy and comfortable together, we will say that my father had a black cat of that name. But do not ask me to remember it, if you please. I already have the name of one Spaniard fixed in my mind, and I am not going to have it crowded out by yours. But what have you done that makes you talked about by all the world?" [Illustration: "I have discovered the elixir of life"] "I have made a great discovery." "What is it?" "The elixir of life." "You do not mean it?" "The savants of the Orient," went on the Spaniard, "claimed that there are one hundred and one ways in which a man may lose his life. He may die by poison, by drowning, bad living, a stroke of lightning, or in ninety-six other ways. But if he dies before he is one hundred years old, it is the result of accident, or of his own ignorance or wilfulness. So you see it is not so very easy to die, when all is said and done." "But you can not convince people of that; they will keep on dying," said the fool. "But they need not, now that I have discovered the elixir of life," replied Don Velerio, in a deep voice. Le Glorieux now surveyed him with a feeling of awe. Men were searching at this very time for the elixir of life, and why should it not have been discovered by this learned doctor of Salamanca? "It is only necessary to take it once in fifty years," observed Don Velerio carelessly. "That seems a long while between doses," responded the fool. "But while you are about it, I should think you would add something to the medicine to put flesh on your bones," he continued, looking at Don Velerio's thin legs, which, clad in black hose, looked like slender iron rods. "Flesh," said the learned man, "is nothing." "It certainly is not much in your case," returned the jester. "But life, life is everything," went on Don Velerio, waving the hand which still clutched the corner of the mantle, a gesture which gave him the appearance of a large bat. "I expect to live to the age of five thousand five hundred and fifty-seven years," said he. "I am afraid you are just a trifle ambitious," said the jester. "The composition of my elixir is a great secret," said the Spaniard. "It is made from serpents' broth," and he raised his voice exultantly. "It must be a great secret since you bawl it out like that." Le Glorieux had now lost all faith in the wisdom of this "learned doctor." "He doubts me! He dares to doubt me!" cried Don Velerio, in a shrill voice, and before he had time to realize what was happening, the jester was pushed over the low balustrade of the bridge and into the dark waters below, where he fell with a loud splash.