"Then do you mean," Blondel resumed after a while, "that all your work there"—he indicated by a nod the chemical half of the room—"has been thrown away?"
"Well——"
"Not quite, I think?" the Syndic said, his small eyes twinkling. "Eh, Messer Basterga, not quite? Now be candid."
"Well, I would not say," Basterga answered coldly, and as it seemed unwillingly, "that I have not derived something from the researches with which I have amused my leisure. But nothing of value to the general."
"Yet something of value to yourself," Blondel said, his head on one side.
Basterga frowned, then shrugged his shoulders. "Well, yes," he said at length, "as it happens, I have. But a thing of no use to any one else, for the simple reason——"
"That you have only enough for yourself!"
The scholar looked astonished and a little offended.
"I do not know how you learned that," he said curtly, "but you are right. I had no intention of telling you as much, but, as you have guessed that, I do not mind adding that it is a remedy for a disease which the most learned physicians do not pretend to cure."
"A remedy?"