When I had satisfied myself that I had really manufactured gold I cut the nugget in two.

One half I sent to a jeweller and worker in precious metals, with whom I had some slight acquaintance, asking him to report upon the quality of the metal.

With the other half I continued my series of experiments, and reduced it in successive stages through all the long series of metals, through silver and zinc and manganese, until I brought it to lithium, which is the lightest of all." "And what did it turn to then ?" asked Robert.
"Then came what to chemists is likely to be the most interesting portion of my discovery.

It turned to a greyish fine powder, which powder gave no further results, however much I might treat it with electricity.
And that powder is the base of all things; it is the mother of all the elements; it is, in short, the substance whose existence has been recently surmised by a leading chemist, and which has been christened protyle by him.

I am the discoverer of the great law of the electrical transposition of the metals, and I am the first to demonstrate protyle, so that, I think, Robert, if all my schemes in other directions come to nothing, my name is at least likely to live in the chemical world.
"There is not very much more for me to tell you.