Old Jode leans back in his chair. This is the oldest of all known swindles. It is worn out long before the first gold brick is made. Old Jode is astounded at his good fortune; this is perfect for Mr. Vachti, who has never been put through the wringer by any person whatsoever.
"Hrrrrrrm!" says old Jode. "Pray go on, sir!"
"Some three years back," says the Prof, "I took the money I had intended to use for my summer sustenance, and duplicated the alchemical process described by Dr. Dee for the production of the Alkahest—the Universal Solvent. It began with icelandic spar, or calcium fluoride. The intervening processes were absurd. But as a result I achieved a liquid which turned out to be hydrofluoric acid—the acid which is now used for etching glass, and which is so nearly a universal solvent that it can be retained in fluoro-carbon plastic bottles."
I perk up my ears. Old Jode sees my face. He grunts: "Interestin'. Pray continue!"
The waiter serves some boef a Marechal Chateaubriand. Jode drools. He begins to stoke himself steady.
"I had proved one alchemical discovery true," says the Prof. "The Philosopher's Stone."
Old Jode chokes. He says, pained: "Not a process to make gold! Please, Prof—"
"The Philosopher's Stone," says the Prof, stern, "may have been achieved. But when metals are transmuted the energy-release is tremendous; it is atomic energy. When uranium is changed into boron and such, an atomic bomb is the result. The manufacture of gold would involve highly lethal radiation in vast quantities. I did not attempt to duplicate the Philosopher's Stone!"
"That's better," says Jode, relieved.
"But," says the Prof, "I did—at great and crippling expense to myself—repeat Hermes Trismigestus' process for making the Elixir of Youth. And it worked."