“What is the subject of the work?” inquired the alchemist.

“It treats,” said the poet, “of that part of the history of king Arthur of England which archbishop Turpin left unwritten, together with the history of the quest of the Sangreal, the whole in heroic measure,—­part rhymes, part blank-verse; and in dactyles moreover, that is to say, in dactylic noun substantives, without any admission of verbs.”

“For my part, I am not much of a judge in matters of poetry,” returned the alchemist, “and therefore I cannot precisely estimate the misfortune you complain of; but in any case it cannot equal my own in wanting means, or a prince to back me and supply me with the requisites, for prosecuting the science of alchemy; but for which want alone I should now be rolling in gold, and richer than ever was Midas, Crassus, or Croesus.”

“Have you ever succeeded, Senor Alchemist,” said the mathematician, “in extracting gold from the other metals?”

“I have not yet extracted it,” the alchemist replied, “but I know for certain that the thing is to be done, and that in less than two months more I could complete the discovery of the philosopher’s stone, by means of which gold can be made even out of pebbles.”

“Your worships,” rejoined the mathematician, “have both of you made a great deal of your misfortunes; but after all, one of you has a book to dedicate, and the other is on the point of discovering the philosopher’s stone, by means of which he will be as rich as all those who have followed that course.  But what will you say of my misfortune, which is great beyond compare?  For two and twenty years I have been in pursuit of the fixed point; here I miss it, there I get sight of it again, and just when it seems that I am down upon it so that it can by no means escape me, I find myself on a sudden so far away from it that I am utterly amazed.  It is just the same with the quadrature of the circle.  I have been within such a hair’s breadth of it, that I cannot conceive how it is that I have not got it in my pocket.  Thus I suffer a torment like that of Tantalus, who starves with fruits all round him, and burns with thirst with water at his lip.  At one moment I seem to grasp the truth, at another it is far away from me; and, like another Sisyphus, I begin again to climb the hill which I have just rolled down, along with all the mass of my labours.”

The projector, who had hitherto kept silence, now struck in.  “Here we are,” he said, “four complainants, brought together by poverty under the roof of this hospital.  To the devil with such callings and employments, as give neither pleasure nor bread to those who exercise them!  I, gentlemen, am a projector, and have at various times offered sundry valuable projects to his majesty, all to his advantage, and without prejudice to the realm; and I have now a memorial in which I supplicate his majesty to appoint a person to whom I may communicate a new project of mine, which will be the means of entirely liquidating all his debts.  But from the fate which all my other memorials have had, I foresee that this one also will be thrown into the dust-hole.  Lest, however, your worships should think me crack-brained, I will explain my project to you, though this be in some degree a publication of my secret.