158 Friar Bacon’s Key. [Aueusr, 
~ T do not profess to be an antiquarian at all,” said the young man, 
“ and, if your purchase had no other value than its age, it would be, in 
my eyes, but a sorry bargain.” 
« And what other value can it have?” I exclaimed. “ Why, if the 
old friar himself were alive again, with all his art and magic to help him, 
I doubt if he could find any thing in this key beyond a piece of rusty 
iron.” 
“ Why then, Sir, your bargain has been a sorry one. But you are 
wrong. The key has an intrinsic value, such as no antiquarian would 
have discovered, had he pored over it for a hundred years in the way he. 
usually considers such things. If you will dine with me when all is 
over,—for this is not the fittest place to talk of these matters,—I will 
show you how this little piece of iron, if wisely used, may be worth to 
you more gold. ” 
« More than I have paid?” 
“ More than is in the exchequer of princes.” 
Being somewhat of a saturnine temper, I have an antipathy to all 
jokes, whether practical or otherwise, and this wore the face of a very 
impudent one, yet I actually accepted his invitation. It is true, the 
young man had not the appearance of a joker; on the contrary, his 
aspect, both from its longitude and lugubrousness was such as a pro- 
fessional mourner (where such artists are in request) would have deemed 
a fortune. And this, with a strong mixture of curiosity on my part, 
determined me to run all the peril of a hoax; the thing on earth I 
usually most dreaded, even beyond a mad dog or a lawyer. 
I pass over the rest of the auction, which had now little interest for 
me, not excepting even the Venus, for a Venus Mr. Fudge pronounced 
the stone to be ; and, if some people were right in their surmises, he had 
better reason than any one to be positive on the subject, having himself, 
as they said, superintended the manufacture of the deity. I thought no 
longer of any thing but my meeting with the young man at the coffee- 
house he had named, and explanation to grow out of it. When the time 
did come—Heaven and earth! how tedious did the dinner seem! It 
appeared to my fancy as if it would never be over, so monstrous was the 
appetite of my host or guest, or so enormous my impatience conceived it. 
But as all earthly things must have an end, so had our meal. The last 
plate was cleared away, the last crumb swept from the cloth, the cloth itself 
borne off under the arm of the waiter, and a magnum of port wine 
placed between us with the remains of a bottle of sherry from the dinner. 
Now it was that I ventured to speak out plainly on the subject, to which 
hitherto he had not made the slightest allusion; and, at my first ques- 
tion, “ What were the hidden virtues of the key he had so much vaunted?” 
the whole man was immediately changed, as if I had touched him with 
the rod of Aaron! 
« Sir,” he said, “ I am here to answer your question, and I will answer 
it; but it is right I warn you beforehand, that my discourse will include 
things scarcely credible to men of this unbelieving age.” ’ 
« Why, truly,” I replied, “ we have not such an excellent capacity 
of belief as our forefathers had, but still we can do pretty well too upon 
occasion.” a 
_“ Yes,” said my guest, with a sneer; “ you do not believe in ghosts 
—scarcely in a devil—but you do believe that a man’s mental and moral 
qualities are regulated by the bumps on his skull—you do believe that 
