"Were I a young man I would take up such matters, Sir Robert, for I believe with you that the time might be more usefully spent; but 'tis too late now. 'Tis not when one's prime is past that men can embark in a fresh course or lay aside the work for which they have laboured for so many years."

"And which, even if made, might bring more woe than good upon the world," Sir Robert said. "Where would be the value of gold if other metals could at will be transformed into it? When first produced, it might enable monarchs to raise huge armies to wage war against their neighbours; but, after a time, its use would become common. Gold would lose its value, and men would come to think less of it than of iron, for it is not so strong nor so fitted for weapons or for tools; and then some other and rarer metal would take its place, and alchemists would begin their work again in discovering another philosopher's stone that would transmute other metals into the more valuable one."

Mr. Ormskirk was silent. "I think, Sir Robert," he said, at last, "that we alchemists do not work solely for the good of mankind, nor give a thought to the consequences that might follow the finding of the philosopher's stone. We dream of immortality, that our name shall pass down through all ages as that of the man who first conquered the secret of nature and made the great discovery that so many thousands of others have sought for in vain."