He tried it, indeed, thrice on the corresponding day of the year, but--the product did not issue." "How do you account for that ?" "Probably, in the first instance, an impurity in one of the drugs introduced a foreign substance into the alembic.

That chance never occurred again, as far as I can learn, until, amusing myself with the same precipitation, I--I, Caesar Basterga of Padua," the scholar continued, not boastfully but in a tone thoughtful and almost absent, "in the last year of the last century, hit at length upon the same result." The Syndic leaned forward; his hands gripped his knees more tightly.
"And you," he said, "can repeat it ?" Basterga shook his head sorrowfully.

"No," he said, "I cannot.

Not that I have myself essayed the experiment more than thrice.

I could not afford it.