is Elixir will really prolong
life?'

"Sing smiled sweetly, and said, 'I myself, my dear sir, am a living
proof of that; I am one hundred and ten years old, and to-day there are
in New York some sixty men who will live to that age, having taken the
powder, unless they die from some form of disease. This elixir will not
protect them against poison or diseases where the poison germ has
entered the system. That is impossible; but it acts upon the nerve
centres and upon the blood corpuscles in such a wonderful way that there
is no degeneration. The person simply lives along the same as he would
between the ages of thirty and forty; he is always the same. He may die
from many causes, but it would not be from old age.'

"'My friend,' I said, 'took the liberty to analyze some of this powder.'

"'Ah! And may I inquire the result of his analysis?'

"A peculiar yellow light came into those eyes, and although he
smiled--Have you ever seen a caged tiger languidly looking at the crowd
of people in front of his cage suddenly discover a dog near him?"

"I don't know that I have," said Robinson.

"Well, if you do you will notice the same yellow light flash into his
eyes, and the sudden change of expression that I saw in the eyes of our
friend Sing. It was gone in a moment, however, and he was again smiling
sweetly.

"'I understand he found it to consist principally of common salt.'

"'Quite so,' answered Sing; 'but he must have discovered that it also
contained something else?'

"'That is true,' I answered, 'there was a small amount of vegetable
matter which gave it a yellow color.'

"'That is the true Elixir,' said Sing; 'salt is merely necessary for the
results. You, as a scientific man, know that the poison which kills so
quickly from the fang of a cobra and the ordinary white of an egg can
hardly be distinguished by the chemist. He finds them both to be
albumen.'

"'Why, then, should one kill and the other be harmless?' I asked.

"'Simply the minute "something else" which is contained in the snake
poison and which is held in solution by the albumen.'

"'Have you any other proof of the power of this Elixir?' I inquired.

"'My dear sir, I trust you do not question the truth of my statement
regarding my own age.'

"He frowned slightly, and those wonderful eyes of his glanced like
lightning towards the two huge attendants standing in plain sight in the
hallway.

"'Not at all,' I hastened to assure him. 'It all seems