sword.
But my master's practice, as well as his skill, went far beyond
mine, and dealt in more dangerous concerns. He was not only a bold,
adventurous practitioner in physic, but also, if your pleasure so
chanced to be, an adept who read the stars, and expounded the fortunes
of mankind, genethliacally, as he called it, or otherwise. He was a
learned distiller of simples, and a profound chemist--made several
efforts to fix mercury, and judged himself to have made a fair hit at
the philosopher's stone. I have yet a programme of his on that subject,
which, if your honour understandeth, I believe you have the better, not
only of all who read, but also of him who wrote it."

He gave Tressilian a scroll of parchment, bearing at top and bottom, and
down the margin, the signs of the seven planets, curiously intermingled
with talismanical characters and scraps of Greek and Hebrew. In the
midst were some Latin verses from a cabalistical author, written out so
fairly, that even the gloom of the place did not prevent Tressilian from
reading them. The tenor of the original ran as follows:--

"Si fixum solvas, faciasque volare solutum,
Et volucrem figas, facient te vivere tutum;
Si pariat ventum, valet auri pondere centum;
Ventus ubi vult spirat--Capiat qui capere potest."

"I protest to you," said Tressilian, "all I understand of this jargon is
that the last words seem to mean 'Catch who catch can.'"

"That," said the smith, "is the very principle that my worthy friend and
master, Doctor Doboobie, always acted upon; until, being besotted with
his own imaginations, and conceited of his high chemical skill, he
began to spend, in cheating himself, the money which he had acquired
in cheating others, and either discovered or built for himself, I could
never know which, this secret elaboratory, in which he used to seclude
himself both from patients and disciples, who doubtless thought his
long and mysterious absences from his ordinary residence in the town of
Farringdon were occasioned by his progress in the mystic sciences, and
his intercourse with the invisible world. Me also he tried to deceive;
but though I contradicted him not, he saw that I knew too much of his
secrets to be any longer a safe companion. Meanwhile, his name waxed
famous--or rather infamous, and many of those who resorted to him did so
under persuasion that he was a sorcerer. And yet his supposed advance in
the occult sciences drew to him th