"I was filled with admiration, and asked my visitor whence he had obtained that wonderful knowledge of the whole world.

He replied that it was a gift freely bestowed on him by a friend who had stayed a few days at his house." Here follows the stranger's account of this friend's experiments.

"When my strange visitor had concluded his narrative, I besought him to give me a proof of his assertion, by performing the transmutatory operation on some metals in my presence.

He answered evasively, that he could not do so then, but that he would return in three weeks, and that, if he was then at liberty to do so, he would show me something that would make me open my eyes.

He appeared punctually to the promised day, and invited me to take a walk with him, in the course of which we discoursed profoundly on the secrets of Nature in fire, though I noticed that my companion was very chary in imparting information about the Grand Arcanum....