None but myself, that girl, and God knows the
privations I had suffered up to that time. Food, clothing, air,
exercise, everything but shelter, was sacrificed toward the one
great end. Success at last crowned my labors. That which Nicholas
Flamel did in 1382, that which George Ripley did at Rhodes in 1460,
that which Alexander Sethon and Michael Scudivogius did in the
seventeenth century, I did in 1856. I made gold! I said to
myself, 'I will astonish New York more than Flamel did Paris.' He
was a poor copyist, and suddenly launched into magnificence. I had
scarce a rag to my back: I would rival the Medicis. I made gold
every day. I toiled night and morning; for I must tell you that I
never was able to make more than a certain quantity at a time, and
that by a process almost entirely dissimilar to those hinted at in
those books of alchemy I had hitherto consulted. But I had no
doubt that facility would come with experience, and that ere long I
should be able to eclipse in wealth the richest sovereigns of the
earth.
"So I toiled on. Day after day I gave to this girl here what gold
I succeeded in fabricating, telling her to store it away after
supplying our necessities.
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