 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 the secret resort of men too powerful to be named, for
purposes too dangerous to be mentioned. Men cursed and threatened him, and
bestowed on me, the innocent assistant of his studies, the nickname of the
Devil's foot-post, which procured me a
