art
serviceable."

"It is false, thou foul-mouthed railer," said Alasco, shaking with
impotent anger; "it is well known that I have approached more nearly
to projection than any hermetic artist who now lives. There are not six
chemists in the world who possess so near an approximation to the grand
arcanum--"

"Come, come," said Varney, interrupting him, "what means this, in the
name of Heaven? Do we not know one another? I believe thee to be so
perfect--so very perfect--in the mystery of cheating, that, having
imposed upon all mankind, thou hast at length in some measure imposed
upon thyself, and without ceasing to dupe others, hast become a species
of dupe to thine own imagination. Blush not for it, man--thou art
learned, and shalt have classical comfort:

'Ne quisquam Ajacem possit superare nisi Ajax.'

No one but thyself could have gulled thee; and thou hast gulled the
whole brotherhood of the Rosy Cross besides--none so deep in the mystery
as thou. But hark thee in thine ear: had the seasoning which spiced
Sussex's broth wrought more surely, I would have thought better of the
chemical science thou dost boast so highly."

"Thou art an hardened villain, Varney," replied Alasco; "many will do
those things who dare not speak of them."

"And many speak of them who dare not do them," answered Varney. "But be
not wroth--I will not quarrel with thee. If I did, I were fain to live
on eggs for a month, that I might feed without fear. Tell me at once,
how came thine art to fail thee at this great emergency?"

"The Earl of Sussex's horoscope intimates," replied the astrologer,
"that the sign of the ascendant being in combustion--"

"Away with your gibberish," replied Varney; "thinkest thou it is the
patron thou speakest with?"

"I crave your pardon," replied the old man, "and swear to you I know but
one medicine that could have saved the Earl's life; and as no man
living in England knows that antidote save myself--moreover, as the
ingredients, one of them in particular, are scarce possible to be come
by, I must needs suppose his escape was owing to such a constitution of
lungs and vital parts as was never before bound up in a body of clay."

"There was some talk of a quack who waited on him," said Varney, after
a moment's reflection. "Are you sure there is no one in England who has
this secret of thine?"

"One man there was," said the doctor, "once my servant, who might have
stolen this of me, with one or two oth