The scholar saw that it needed but a little to convince him, and took his line with confidence; nor without some pride in the wits that had saved him.

"The _remedium_ ?" he repeated with impatient wonder.

"Do you know that the _remedium_ is unique?
That it is a man's life?
That in the world's history it scarce appears once in five hundred years?
That all the wealth of kings cannot produce it, nor the Spanish Indies furnish it?
Do you remember these things, Messer Blondel, and do you ask if I keep it like a common philtre in a box in my lodgings ?" He snorted in contempt, and going disdainfully to the hearth spat in the fire as if he could not brook the idea.

Then returning to the Syndic's side, he took up his story in a different tone.

"The _remedium_," he said, "my good friend, is in the Grand Duke's Treasury at Turin.