“Well, well,” he continued, starting upon his task with avidity, “we will talk about him presently.  This is indeed miraculous.  I am most grateful—­deeply grateful to you—­for having brought me this manuscript.”

Mr. Cowper was busy for the next quarter of an hour.  His expression, as he turned up dictionaries and made notes, was still full of the liveliest and most intense interest.  Presently he leaned back in his chair.  He kept one hand upon the loose sheets of manuscript, while with the other he removed his spectacles.  Then he closed his eyes for a moment.

“My young friend,” he said, “did you ever hear a quaint Asiatic legend—­scarcely a legend, perhaps, but a superstition—­that many and many a wise man, four thousand years ago, spent his nights and his days, not as our more modern scientists of a few hundred years ago have done, in the attempt to turn baser metals into gold, but in the attempt to constitute from simple elements the perfect food for man?”

Burton shook his head.  He was somewhat mystified.

“I have never heard anything of the sort,” he acknowledged.

“The whole literature of ancient Egypt and the neighboring countries,” Mr. Cowper proceeded, “abounds with mystical stories of this perfect food.  It was to come to man in the nature of a fruit.  It was to give him, not eternal life—­for that was valueless—­but eternal and absolute understanding, so that nothing in life could be harmful, nothing save objects and thoughts of beauty could present themselves to the understanding of the fortunate person who partook of it.  These pages which you have brought to me to translate are concerned with this superstition.  The writer claims here that after centuries of research and blending and grafting, carried on without a break by the priests of his family, each one handing down, together with an inheritance of his sacerdotal office, many wonderful truths respecting the growth of this fruit,—­the writer of these lines claims here, that he, the last of his line, has succeeded in producing the one perfect food, from which everything gross is eliminated, and whose spiritual result upon a normal man is such as to turn him from a thing of clay into something approaching a god.”

“Does he mention anything about beans?” Burton asked anxiously.

Mr. Cowper nodded benignantly.

“The perfect food referred to,” he said, “appears to have been produced in the shape of small beans.  They are to be eaten with great care, and to ensure permanency in the results, a green leaf of the little tree is to follow the consumption of the bean.”

Burton sprang to his feet.

“A thousand thanks, professor!” he cried.  “That is the one thing we were seeking to discover.  The leaves, of course!”

Mr. Cowper looked at his visitor in amazement.

“My young friend,” he said, “are you going to tell me that you have seen one of these beans?”