The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1904-09-09
THE WRONG ELIXIR.
BY BARRY PAIN.

now there lived a certain alchemist.
He was an old man His feet shufisd
and his knees doddered as he walked.
He had the gray and hairy face OF q
sick monkey. His knowledge was so
profound that he was generally re-
spected, and his temper was so abom-
Unable that he was intensely unpopu-
lar. Therefore, when on a fine morn
| ing in May he came down to breakfast
with an expression approaching COM
placence and entirely omitted to curse
the cook Chs universal procedure be-
fore taking food his wife and family
were surprised and little nervous. 1t
was so unlike him. His wife asked
him if he were unwell. He not only
answered the question, though on prin-
ciple he never answered his wife's
questions and usually affected not to
have heard her speak. but he even
added thank you" to his mo" She
was the more distressed and he noticed
it, He never thanked anybody. 1t por-
tended something serious.
'The fact is" he said, that the stud
les of lifeIlme eliminated last night in
discovery which believe to be of
Importance. Hence my unusual hilar-
ity.''
Hilarity was perhaps strong word
for it. Yet even a great and tumul-
tuous joy would have been comprehen-
sible considering the nature of his
discovery.
as it the philosophers stone?" his
wife asked.
But he was in no mood to overdo his
vein of gracious light-heartedness. He
stared at her stonily as if she were
something in a bottle which he had
already analysed. Then he shuffied out
towards his laboratory.
1t was not the philosophers stone
1t was, If possible, an even greater dis
covery, for in the elixir which that
very night he meant to taste he held
the secret of eternal life. Eternal life |
was in these dark ages considered de- |
sirable by quite a number of people. !
He did not propaSe to communicate his |
secret to any of his fellows. It was to,
be for himself alone. They would go |
and he would remain growing slowly
into the wonder of the whole world.
There were even indications in his
researches that made it seem probable
that with the unlimited years of his
life there would be an accession of
youth. His hair would grow again
and he would get new teeth and per-
haps learn once more the meaning of
the word romance Emperors would
come from the east to look upon him
the one man in the world who held the
secret.
L the meantime he was not dis
rosed to be idle His ordinary avoca-
tlons called him. A gypsy-faced girl
had come to him with gold pieces, got,
the devil knows how. The alchemist
did not inquire. He tested the gold
and found it true. "And for this?" he
asked
"There is a man." she said, in
tired, uninterested way. who has got
TO die | need very swift poison and
one that leaves no trace of poison in
the body"
"Painless?" he inquired.
She shrugged her shoulders. "It is {
If no Importance, she said He begged t
her to come to him again in three days. t
He was a man of vast experience and
lad no trouble in satisfying the SIM 6
lie needs of the gypsy girl. He took
me drug here and another there. He q
blended and cooked and strained.
Gu En ho la |
,reen liquor with neither taste nor 6
NELL A drop of it would have killed
n elephant, and gallon of it would S
AVE defied the best of our modern f
hemists. 1t was Of the same color t
s the elixir OF life which he himself a
vas to drink that evening. t.
And, Of course. he made the usual b
Mistake. Possibly he had primed him. {,
elf with strong waters to give him b
ourage for his experiment, and the e
ourage had been bought at the ex- II
ense of clear-headedness. t,
At any rate he reached his hand to
he wrong glass, anu in a moment it Il
ras all over. He had drunk the poison b
nat had been intended for the gypsy Il
iris faithless lover He lay an un- o.
dy lump of clay colored wornout hui W
lanity, on the studio floor with a fixed b.
rim on his face that would have T
.ightened people. His wife found him hi
here in the morning and wept bit VI
,rly and was sincerely sorry that she te
ould never hear him curse the cook tn
gain. There was glass filled with il
greenish fluid, and this she threw at
way, not knowing that she had lost 81
ere the discovery that had never been W
ade till then. and will never be made hi
gain. 1t seemed to her safer. The
1psy girl was annoyed, but said moth TO
e. She had enough money left to m
~ herself a knife and she got into m
rious trouble over 1t. ar
That he Took the poison is I'M kr
,ubted That he took the wrong til
ixir is point on which should like ST
have the dead mans opinion. In