“‘Can you procure it?’
“‘I should think so!’
“‘What is it?’
“‘We must add to the several ingredients already combined in this phial, the three last drops of the life-blood of an infant.’
“‘Well, but where will you procure this infant?’ said Balsamo horror-struck.
“‘I trust to you for that.’
“‘To me? You are mad, master!’
“‘Mad? And why?’ asked the old man, perfectly unmoved at this charge, and licking with the utmost delight a drop of the fluid which had escaped from the cork of the phial and was trickling down the side.
“‘Why, for that purpose you must kill the child.’
“‘Of course we must kill him; and the handsomer he is the better.’”