Frederic Van Rensselaer Dey

“ If but half the wonders related of the round-shouldered, studious-looking little man had been true, they were enough to account for the horror in which he was held, while their foundation on facts was undeniable. Some people said, if any living thing crossed his threshold, it never re-appeared. The grocer opposite, who served the chemist with trembling, told of scores of stray cats and dogs enticed into Hawksley's shop, but they were always homeless, miserable creatures. ”

“ Come, be our chemist."
I still hesitated, but he continued eagerly:
"Though I am not young, my constitution is exceptionally sound, and I shall need but a couple of hours in solution. I will administer to myself the drug that causes unconsciousness, and lie at length at the bottom of this great tub. When I am fast asleep pour over me three pailfuls of the liquid in yonder yellow cask. You may watch me dissolve, or cover the tub with this tarpaulin. ”

“ Salem then enjoyed a maritime commerce that rivalled that of any New England port, and the captain of a clipper in the Liverpool trade was seen to enter the mysterious chemist’s shop, but, though watched, was not observed to go out again. Higham, the grocer, who knew Captain Simpson and his son very well, saw the captain call upon Hawksley, noticed that they seemed acquainted, and perceived that they had some sort of dispute, though neither the low tones of the chemist nor the captain’s loud and angry epithets gave a clue to the matter under controversy. ”

“ Such benevolent actions as were sometimes reported of Hawksley were also attributed to his magical powers. On one occasion, when a friendless child was knocked down by a horse and taken up with a broken leg, it was the old chemist who bore the little sufferer tenderly away, closed the shop door in the faces of a gaping crowd, afraid to enter, and told them that he would care for and cure the foundling. ”

“ Higham leaned nearer, and said in a low voice:
"Hawksley's well off. His father left him plenty to live on. He hasn't taken in a dollar a week, sometimes, these ten years. Then why does he pretend to keep a shop? I'll tell you. He's experimenting! Sure's you're born, he's experimenting, and he must have something living and moving and breathing to try his devilish tricks upon. That's what I think! At first, cats and dogs and birds would do. Now he wants humans—humans! ”

“ In from fifteen to thirty minutes I shall be completely dissolved. Counting from that time, wait in the shop for two hours. Then, from that cask, which you have seen me use several times, pour one dipperful, just as you have seen me do. Then you have only to hold this vial to my nostrils till I open my eyes. It is all very simple. You will do it, won't you?"
"We'll do it, certainly," spoke up Higham, who entered into the matter mightily, and I uttered no dissent.
Hawksley peered into the cask of Restorative.
"Enough for a dozen small men like me," he said, "but it's getting low." ”

“ When father had stretched his limbs a bit, he helped us, in the same wondering way I had done, to bring to life the four other men confined in casks in the cellar, and when the city marshal and his men came at ten o'clock to make their search they not only found all whom they sought, but those persons assured them that they had come to Hawksley's and remained of their own free will, in order to be cured of their ills. ”

“ You are eye-witnesses of its success, but you are not chemists nor physiologists, so it would do no good to explain to you in the language of science all the details of the glorious process which will be such a blessed boon to humanity, and which I shall immediately publish to the world. ”

“ What follows of this strange tale is told in the words of Burke Simpson, as he wrote it down afterwards:
I was beginning to think it strange that the old man did not came back to the ship when Mark Higham, the chandler, came and told me that father had gone into Hawksley’s chemist shop the day before and had never come out, so I cleared for the scene at once. A hand was still on watch at Higham’s and reported no sail; the old man had not yet got under way. ”

“ There were certainly no animals in the upper story, nor room for so many in the cellar as had been traced to the premises, to say nothing of long periods of unbroken silence, so the generally accepted belief made Hawksley a magician, at whose command birds and beasts appeared and disappeared. ”

“ If a combination of metals was dissolved, the restorative fluid gave back no alloy, but the separate metals. If an organic substance—that is, vegetable or animal matter—was put in the solution, it could be restored, but unorganized—a chaotic mass of tissues.
"My grandfather made the next step forward, and his restoring chemical not only gave back iron for iron, but brass—which is an alloy—for brass, bronze for bronze, spelter for spelter, and so on. ”

“ But you comprehend the result—man's complete triumph over disease by this process of dissolution aad rehabilitation. The foundation was my ancestor’s discovery that every substance—iron, gold, or any metal, flesh, bone, gristle, etc.,—may be dissolved by some chemical or combination of chemicals, and his inference was that a universal solvent might by their combination, be discovered. ”

“ The cellar was full of casks, with movable lids, each containing liquid. Hawksley warned us not to put a finger into one of them, on pain of fearful burning. This made me suspicious.
"A body might be hid in one of these big casks," I said to the head constable. "Let's dump the whole cargo." ”