However, my soldiering was of no great duration, for peace was soon declared, and I then pursued the study of chemistry, for which I had a strong turn, first with Vorhaager of Leyden, and later with De Huy of Strasburg, though I fear that these weighty names are but sounds to your ears.' 'Truly,' said Saxon, 'there seemeth to be some fatal attraction in this same chemistry, for we met two officers of the Blue Guards in Salisbury, who, though they were stout soldierly men in other respects, had also a weakness in that direction.' 'Ha!' cried Sir Jacob, with interest.

'To what school did they belong ?' 'Nay, I know nothing of the matter,' Saxon answered, 'save that they denied that Gervinus of Nurnberg, whom I guarded in prison, or any other man, could transmute metals.' 'For Gervinus I cannot answer,' said our host, 'but for the possibility of it I can pledge my knightly word.

However, of that anon.

The time came at last when the second Charles was invited back to his throne, and all of us, from Jeffrey Hudson, the court dwarf, up to my Lord Clarendon, were in high feather at the hope of regaining our own once more.

For my own claim, I let it stand for some time, thinking that it would be a more graceful act for the King to help a poor cavalier who had ruined himself for the sake of his family without solicitation on his part.