"Have you already forgotten that miserable vagabond," continued Eleazar with a ferocious look, "who played off his stupid trick upon us the other day at the forge? I am to die soon. This was the only thing wanting to set all our affairs in the most dismal confusion. But here, here at this furnace, I have it already preparing, the only sure safeguard against all such idle fears; and as I have succeeded with the help of wisdom in turning unsightly things into gold, so I shall not fail in producing that elixir for which so many mighty minds have heretofore sought and laboured, and often in vain." Edward went nearer to him. "In truth," he exclaimed, "you amaze me. You talk about these mysterious matters with such a careless security, as I have never yet met with; and it perplexes me the more since my reason tells me that your pursuit is a mere chimera, and the discovery of such an art a fable." "Reason!" cried the little man, drawing up his withered face into numberless wrinkles. "This reason methinks is the true chimera, and never spawned anything but fables. Take these gold bars, which I cast in this form yesterday, after extracting the metal last week from some lead: there lies a touchstone; scratch it; and then tell me whether it is not true genuine gold." Edward took up the bars, put them to the test, and found them genuine. "You must either fancy," continued the alchemist, "that I begin by getting a heap of ducats, and then melt them down like a fool, or else you cannot have another word to say. Will you keep these two bars as a remembrance? I make you a present of them." Edward lookt at the stunted figure with astonishment, then laid down the bars on the table again, and said: "No, I won't rob you; the present would be much too valuable. But you should not let these vast treasures lie about here at random thus mixt up with all the rest of your things: it is holding out a lure to thieves and robbers." "Nobody will look for gold in my house," answered the other, busying himself again at his furnace: "nobody will recognize gold under this ungainly form. Besides there are means after all for keeping off thieves and house-breakers, which none of you have ever yet dreamt of. If however you still doubt me, bring me a dollar next time, make a secret mark on it, and I will give it you back turned into gold. But the matter must not go further. And then you will no longer question my chance of discovering the elixir of life. Only I should like to punish that beggarly vagrant, that rascally herb-culler, and pitiful conjuror, as he deserves. Let him only come for once into my quarters! With all his contemptible jugglery, I would astound him! I am so enraged with the fellow, the blood runs into my head at the very thought of him." "How," interposed Edward, "came that paltry jest to make so deep an impression upon you?"