"Yes, yes; I am delighted, Acharat, for I have found what I sought."
"Gold—diamonds?"
"Pooh! They are pretty discoveries for my soul to rejoice over."
"I suppose you mean your elixir, in that case."
"Yes, my boy, my elixir—life everlasting."
"Oh, so you are still harping on that string," said the younger sage sadly, for he thought his senior was following an idle dream.
But without listening Althotas was lovingly peering into his phial.
"The proportions are found at last," he mumbled. "Elixir of Aristæus, twenty grams; balm of mercury, fifteen; precipitate of gold, fifteen; essence of Lebanon cedar, twenty-five grams."
"But it seems to me, bar the Aristæan elixir, this is about what you last mixed up."
"That is so, but there was lacking the binding ingredient, without which the rest are no good."