The AlchemistAge-adapted version

Prologue and Beginning

Fortune, says the prologue, likes folly.

Therefore we get two hours of it: for their sake and for ours. London is the place, for no city is better at fun and at breeding new kinds of con artists, braggarts, jesters, and hopeful idiots. The author does not wish to offend, only to guide and entertain, and shows the follies so naturally that even those who commit them can recognize them without daring to admit it.

Then the action kicks off. In a house belonging to a gentleman named Lovewit, two swindlers argue so fiercely that bottles and boxes rattle. Their voices cut through the walls. One, Subtle, calls himself an alchemist and wears a velvet cap and a cloak. He looks as if he has secrets in every fold. The other, Face, is dressed in a captain's uniform, sword drawn, and looks as if he is used to having the last word.

Between them stands Dol Common, with strong arms and a sharp tongue, trying to stop them before the neighbors come running to the noise. Subtle shouts that it is his head, his art, his rituals that bring in the money. Face replies that without him, Subtle would be standing in garbage heaps picking rags before sunrise. They drag each other down into the past with ugly images: Face as a poor butler's boy, Subtle as a shabby beggar at Pie-corner, with a filthy hat and moldy slippers on his chilblains.

Words hail like stones. Dol smashes a bottle, takes the sword from Face and shakes them both: either they make peace and cooperate, or everything they have built will be blown away in an instant. She looks them straight in the eyes. The three join hands.

They call their scheme the venture tripartite – a threefold enterprise: all in common, none in precedence. They smile at each other, but the smiles are loose. Trust is thin as glass. Yet they smile, for there’s a knock at the door.

First mark: Dapper Face looks out the window. A young law clerk – the slender type who can write six neat hands and likes to quote Ovid – stands outside. He looks nervous, as if he’s paced around before daring to knock. Dapper, they call him. Face whispers the plan quickly. Subtle puts on the wise cloak. Face pretends to be on his way out and meets Dapper at the door: Oh, if only I could have waited! The doctor is busy with great works.

Dapper apologizes and holds up a heavy purse of coins. You can hear the money clinking. He whispers about a matter: he wants a "familiar," a little helper spirit for gambling. First he mentions a fly for horses and cups, but then, pressed by his own dreams, he admits that he really wants luck in all games – cards, dice, everything. You can see he has been thinking about this for a long time. Subtle sits solemnly, as if weighing his words before letting them out.

He first refuses, muttering about the danger of disturbing the art, mentions the Read case, and promises to say no for everyone's good. Face becomes furious in his role as proud captain and barks at Subtle for being blind to a "special gentleman." Dapper, on his part, swears to keep silent, never betray them, never be a "chiaus." His promises are like oaths in church. He promises more coins.

Subtle catches his breath and peers at Dapper: the best complexion, he says softly; the fairy queen loves such men. He has the mark of victory, you must know! Dapper wants to deny it, but Face makes big eyes: Don't contradict fate, man! Dapper blushes, swears by Jove that he will win ten thousand pounds and share half. His eyes light up.

Subtle laughs in his professorial manner and dismisses the hesitation. He takes four angels, then one more, and lets Dapper understand that such a gift – properly handled – will make everything succeed. The ceremonies are strict, they say.

Dapper must fast until one. Three drops of vinegar in the nose, two in the mouth, one in each ear. Wash fingers and eyes. When he returns, he must say "hum" three times and "buz" the same number. He must come in a clean shirt – one never knows what grace comes with white linen.

He nods eagerly, takes notes, repeats. You can see he's already practicing the words. And he trots out.

Second exchange: Abel Drugger and the shop sign that works like magic Then a shy young man slips in: Abel

Drugger, a tobacconist just starting out. He has brought a rough sketch of his corner shop.

The paper is crumpled, as if he has unfolded and refolded it many times. Where should the door go?

The shelves? What should hold boxes and what pots? Captain Face has said that the doctor knows men's planets and angels.

Abel hopes with all he has, for he doesn't have much to begin with. Subtle softens. He studies fingertips and forehead lines. Were you born on a Wednesday? Abel nods. The little finger belongs to Mercury, the house of life is Libra – you shall trade with scales!

He points at the sketch: the door shall face south, the broadside to the west. On the east side you write Mathlai, Tarmiel, Baraborat. On the north side Rael, Velel, Thiel. Those are the names of mercury spirits – they scare flies from the boxes. Under the threshold: a magnet.

It will draw in gallants with spurs. On the counter a doll with a screw and court makeup – the ladies will not be able to pass by.

You will deal in minerals, he says. Abel blinks: I have arsenic, vitriol, salt of tartar, argail, alkali, and cinnabar at home! He says it as if showing off treasures. Subtle nods as if he knew it. Finally he makes the sign for the shop sign: a bell for Abel – bell. A man in a "rug" cloak named "Dee" – D. A dog that sneezes "er". Together: Drugger.

Face claps: Abel is created! Abel, who lives on cheese and has gotten worms, lights up. He pulls out a Portuguese coin, his half-year's savings, and places it on the table, asking Subtle to strike the unlucky days from the almanac and give advice on shelves. The coin shines in the light. Subtle promises, and Abel runs off to do everything right.

The big fish: Sir Epicure Mammon Now something heavy stirs in the street.

Dol peeks and sees a hefty knight talking incessantly, arms full of dreams. Sir Epicure Mammon – he who has been drilling into everyone's ears that this day will be gold. He drags along Surly, a friend who is not easily fooled.

"Here we stand on the coast of Peru," says Mammon with burning eyes, pointing toward the laboratory. You can see he is already tasting the gold in his imagination. "This is Solomon's Ophir, reached in ten months, not three years.

Today I say: Be rich!" He promises everything: no more dice, no more chasing young heirs with liveried servants and brandy, no more velvet linings for coarse cloaks. He lifts one hand over the other as if already blessing London with amber spoons, rose-dew baths, and rooms with perfumed mists. Face comes running and reports that the flask is blushing like a girl caught in the act. Projection will happen in three hours.

Mammon embraces the words and unfolds a whole world: He will buy tin and lead from all tinsmiths, copper from Lothbury, and transform everything into gold. He will buy Devonshire and Cornwall and turn them into India. He will have a seraglio, but first he will castrate Face – in jest, to keep things straight. He will love fifty women a night, eat pearls dissolved in the spirit of the sun, indulge in camel heels and pheasants, have the cook knighted for good spices, and have concubines who carry him in tin and glass that multiply his image as he walks.

The words pour from him like water from a cracked fountain. Surly smiles crookedly and says he'll believe it when he sees it, and if his eyes deceive him, he'll have a whore piss them out the next day.

Mammon doesn't roll his eyes — he just opens more books: Adam wrote in High German, he says. Jason's fleece was a book on alchemy written on ram skin. The dragon in the story was mercury, the oxen were the furnace, the teeth were sublimated mercury.

Subtle enters, grave as a priest, and warns against greed. The work must serve God and the common good. He says the sun is in its cloak, the medicine has a triple soul. His words are a stream of colors and degrees of heat, retorts and pelicans, "the green lion," "crow's head," "peacock's tail." Surly listens sharply and whispers that this language is beautiful.

– almost like thieves' cant. But he grits his teeth. He smells something. Subtle explains alchemy as nature in miniature. Eggs hatch in ovens in Egypt, he says.

Is that not greater than helping lead become gold, when nature is already heading that way? Moist exhalation and thick earthy part form the substance for metal. Mercury and sulfur are the parents. The imperfect come first, then the perfect.

One ounce that first converts a hundred can, after each new solution and coagulation, transform a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand. Mammon becomes almost devout. Surly snorts at words like "urine and eggshells, women's menses, man's blood." He thinks all this is obfuscation. Subtle smiles and says that the ancients hid the secret deliberately, to keep fools away.

Dol glides past the door. Mammon sees her – “Bradamante, a brave piece!” – but Face whispers quickly: she is mad from Hebrew books, becomes unruly if one says “genealogy.” Mammon gives money to meet, Face promises to sneak him in. Surly doubts more and more: This house is a brothel, he says tightly.

The two swindlers rub their hands when he leaves to meet Captain Face at Temple Church – the hook is set in both: the dreamer and the doubter.

Puritans with sacks and problems There is knocking again.

A stern man in black, Ananias, comes to trade on behalf of holy brothers in Amsterdam. He speaks of truth, while Subtle spews words like “spagyrica” and “chrysopoeia.”

Ananias calls it pagan Greek. Subtle snaps back that he should speak like the philosophers, and Face rattles off the ailments of the metals: putrefaction, solution, ablution, sublimation, cohobation, calcination, ceration, fixation. The avalanche of words makes Ananias stiffen. The brother stands rigid as a post, but returns later with Tribulation Wholesome, a leader who knows to bow to means when the cause demands it.

Outside, Tribulation reassures him: The holy cause is tried. God often uses lost instruments. Is anyone more hot-tempered than glassblowers, more antichristian than bell-founders? Fire can make a man reckless. When the stone is finished, the heat can become zeal, and they can stand against Rome's rags. They knock, enter, and Subtle receives them like a lord.

He recalls all the good the stone can do: three drops of elixir to a powerful man with gout – a friend for life. A lamb becomes young. A woman with scars gets her face back. A knight with bone disease is cured. And the political: paying an army in the field, buying the King of France out of his realm.

They can become temporal lords themselves!

Tribulation leans forward. You can see him calculating in his head. Ananias mutters that bells are unholy. Subtle threatens to ruin everything. Tribulation silences him and says: A melody can be religious. Very well. So they accept – and Subtle promises to throw the medicine onto the metal: as much silver as tin, as much gold as brass.

They count days: eight, ten, three, fifteen. A hundred marks' worth of goods could become six million. He needs more coal. If the brethren are short, he can turn tin into good Dutch dollars. "Is coining lawful?" asks Tribulation. It's not stamping, only casting, answers Subtle. The brethren will approve it, promises Ananias. Then it shall be burned.

New masks, new hunt Face returns in captain's clothes, but without Surly — that damned fellow wouldn't take the bait. Face still has good news: a Spanish grandee is coming in secret, with six sacks and chests full of pistoles and pieces-of-eight. He wants a bath, and then he wants to "parley with Dol".

Dol nods—she will tickle him with her native tongue and keep him in a haze of perfume and promises. They lay the plan: fleece him clean, and take ransom if he tries to slip away. But before the stranger, old deals return. Dapper knocks again—ready for the fairy queen. His face is taut as a bow. And Abel trudges in with a new client: Kastril, a young landowner with a quick temper and a desire to learn the art of quarreling and winning. He looks like he's used to getting his way. Abel hasn't yet gotten the damask, but he has tobacco.

Face beams kindly: The doctor can teach you everything from giving and receiving lies, measuring every quarrel with an instrument, and living by your wits – if you dare. Kastril is first skeptical of inns, gambling and trickery, but Face points at Dapper, who is about to get a fly and win a barony in two weeks.

Kastril softens. He sends the boy to fetch his sister: a widow, nineteen, a bit out of fashion, but good. Her name is Dame Pliant.

Dapper is tied up and hidden Dapper does everything right.

He has measured out coins from Edward, old Harry, James and Elizabeth, all carefully. Face sighs that he should have had one from Mary too, but Philip-and-Mary's will do. Subtle enters in a priest's robe for the fairies, with a strip of cloth. Is he faster?

Has he said hum, hum, hum, buzz, buzz, buzz? Yes, says Dapper, and his voice trembles a little. As a sign of hope Dapper receives 'fortune's petticoat' and a rag from the queen's own shift that she tore when he lay in the cradle – this is tied over his eyes. 'Cast off all worldly things,' says Subtle.

Dapper dumps pockets and handkerchiefs.

"Rings? Seals?" Dapper wonders, and immediately he hears the "fairies" coming to pinch him if he lies. He screams and confesses: a spur-ryal in a paper scrap, and—well—a half-crown of gold around his wrist from his dear. A lead heart too, but he gets to keep that. As Dol darts in and whispers that Sir Epicure is at the doorstep, they suddenly have to decide: What do we do with Dapper?

The answer: Reserve him! They stuff a gag of gingerbread into his mouth—against dizziness—and hide him in the privy. "Two hours, not a word, not a glance," they say, and promise that his aunt, the fairy queen, is eating in bed and will soon grant him favor.

Mammon and Dol: Gold in the Air

Mammon enters, and Face says the projection is happening soon. He also drops hints about "my master's sister," a lady of rank. Mammon is burning: he will let gold rain like Zeus over Danaë. Face warns that she hates controversy — but loves physics, mathematics, poetry, state affairs, and everything licentious — but not quarrelsome theology. Mammon promises to greet her with gold, not with dogmas.

Dol enters in glittering gowns. Mammon wants to kiss the hem; she gives him her lips instead, straight and polite. He calls her noble, she says "rather courtesy." She says she is only a poor baron's daughter, but retains the material, though the trappings are lacking. Mammon sees in her the nose of Valois, the brow of the Medicis, the look of Austria.

Face smiles to himself: his father was an Irish fruit seller. Mammon tells a secret: In this house, today, the philosopher's stone exists. She shall be mistress over it. Imagine, he says, your first wish – then comes a flood of gold, a whole deluge that can breed a nation. She asks how it goes in a monarchy.

He whispers that the prince will clearly want it, but if they travel to a free state, they can live in eternal pleasure.

Face appears and pushes them toward the garden – the laboratory walls have ears. He gets a shiny coin for his help.

Kastril, Dame

Pliant, and the science of arguing Kastril and his sister are led to Doctor Subtle in the "demonstration chamber.

Subtle greets the boy as his earthly son and immediately grounds him: you snarled the wrong line instead – one must know logic, grammar, first and second intentions, canons, divisions, modes, degrees, predicaments, substance and accident, causes external and internal – before one can call anyone a liar by measure and mark. Kastril trembles with the insult but plays tough. Subtle turns to the widow, kisses politely, tastes the lip and looks at the forehead, and predicts: Your coming is no knight, but a soldier or an artist, soon honored. She glows. Face re-enters as captain, calls her "lady" and promises great things. "The count is here," he says – a Spanish one.

Surly in Spanish disguise – and a danger to the whole enterprise

This is the crisis: the Spanish don they were supposed to pick is Surly in disguise. He enters in a stiff cape and poorly painted beard, mumbles broken Spanish, and surveys the room with cold eyes. Face and Subtle whisper a plan at lightning speed. Dol is busy with Mammon – they cannot lose Surly now.

If he is sent away, he will think evil. They decide: Dame Pliant must come in first – they can pretend it is her fate. The whole enterprise stands or falls on the house's credibility. "Divide the spoils, take your chance," says Face to Subtle. Subtle's eyes widen, but he gives in – with a curse and a thought of revenge.

Kastril shouts that his sister must behave. Face sings the Spanish praises: the best horses, beards, lace collars, dances, weapons, perfumes. The lady shall become a countess, driven through the city with eight mares. Citizens shall cry out to her trains. She refuses Spaniards because of 1588 – even though she was born three years later – but is tempted by her brother's kicks.

She nods. She will do as her brother wishes. Surly, as the "count," says in Spanish that the delay is killing him and that the woman is the most perfect sight he has seen. Subtle interprets, Kastril praises the law-french and chases his sister closer so she may kiss first – "Spanish custom," says Subtle. They disappear into the garden.

Subtle and Face exchange glances: Now everything must happen quickly and cleanly.

Dol flies off the handle, Mammon gets a shock, and everything goes up in smoke.

Dol, the learned lady, suddenly falls into a trance and begins to mumble about Alexander, Perdiccas,

Antigonus, Seleucus and Ptolemy, about camp-feet and dust-feet, Gog and Egypt, and that Britannia must learn the tongues of Eber and Javan. She scatters names from Broughton, Kimchi, Onkelos, Aben Ezra. Mammon stares. Face runs in and whispers that mention of a 'fifth monarchy' triggered the whole catechism. Hush, the old man of the house – the alchemist – cannot bear such things.

Subtle breaks in and shouts that such misdeeds delay the great work.

Dol finally stops. Then: A bang that shakes the floorboards. Smoke seeps out from under the door. Face rushes in with dust in his hair: Everything is ruined! The flasks shattered, the furnace sunk, the retorts cracked, the pelicans in shards, Hermes' seal broken. Subtle falls as if dead. Mammon stares. 'Is all lost? All costs?' Face says there remains a bushel of coal.

Mammon puts his hands to his forehead and says that his own sin, his carnal appetite, did it. Face helps him toward the door, urging repentance, perhaps a hundred pounds for the poor-box at Bethlem. Mammon nods, heavy and silent, and walks like a man burdened with all the gold he never got.

Surly unmasks In the garden, Surly has already whispered to Dame Pliant that she is among villains.

He could have taken her, he says, but he chooses to save her instead. As a man of no great fortune but with honor, he asks if she will consider him. She says she will think about it. Then he goes inside again, and Subtle tries to pick his pockets and purses—and gets a fist in reply.

Surly throws off his cloak and shouts that he is the man they tried to catch as a Spaniard. He loudly explains how the scam works: the gold leaves, the copper rubbed with sulfur to take color, the mercury that disappears like smoke. Face tries to slip away, but is dragged into the scene by Kastril, who spews insults and wants to quarrel straight. Face whispers that Surly is hired by a rival magician to overturn their house. Drugger confirms that Surly owes him for tobacco—small bits of truth help a big lie.

Kastril chases Surly out with shouts of "Don Quixote." Ananias fumes about casting dollars – lawful, he says, after prayer and fasting. Subtle nods them away, for here is "a Spanish minister who spies." Everything is slipping at the edges. But the house holds together barely – for a while longer.

The Master Comes Home Dol comes storming in:

Lovewit, the master of the house, is on the street.

The neighbors surround him like a wreath of stovepipes. Face pales. Everything they have planned boils away if he enters now.

He shouts to Subtle: Beard off! The captain's beard must go – I must be Jeremy, the butler, clean and smooth.

Dol: hot water! Subtle: shave me, but don't cut my throat! And pack, pack – two trunks, everything we can grab: coins, damask, tobacco, French skirts, belts, scabbards, a nimble priest for an impromptu wedding if needed. They share a final plan: Meet in Ratcliff tomorrow and split the loot. All of Mammon's brass and tin can keep the cellar for now. Then they hurry off in their separate directions.

Lovewit elbows his way to the door. The neighbors complain all at once: Every day there have come lords, ladies, citizens, knights, oyster women and tobacco dealers – wagons! drums! – What has Jeremy been up to? Has he sold the furniture? Put up posters about five-legged monsters? Cures for toothache?

A smith is fetched to break down the door. The door suddenly opens by itself: out comes Jeremy, freshly shaved, plain, a bit proud. He says calmly that he has kept the house locked – the plague, no, cat plague! The cat in the pantry got sick. He let no one in. Incense and tar were to cleanse the rooms.

The neighbors hesitate. Wasn't the door open? "No," says Jeremy, fingering the key ring. They become uncertain; perhaps it was another house? Lovewit dismisses them with a grateful but sharp voice, and sends the smith home.

But then Surly and Mammon arrive. They hammer and shout for cheats and lungers. Lovewit says he is the owner. Mammon asks for Subtle and Lungs – he wants to catch them. Jeremy says no such people have been here for three weeks. Surly calls him an insolent rascal. They run off for officers and promise to return with full force. Lovewit looks at Jeremy. "What in the world?" he asks, while the neighbors whisper that they have seen coaches here.

"Just nonsense from moon-slave heads," says Jeremy. And then a new voice breaks in from the house: "Captain! Doctor!"

—it is Dapper, the gag is eaten through and his voice is freed. Lovewit looks toward the sound. Jeremy waves in the air, points at "the air": There are spirits in the neighborhood, sir. But then another voice whispers: "Hush, you fool, you're ruining everything!"

Then Lovewit knows. "No more tricks, Jeremy," he says. "The truth, the shortest way."

Jeremy stands still for a moment. Then he chooses one last con—but now for the master's benefit. He bows his head, begs for mercy, and promises a widow—rich, gentle, young—who can make Lovewit seven years younger. "Put on a Spanish cloak, sir. She is in here."

Lovewit lets him show. He himself has been a widower. He asks him to open, but also to clear the way. Jeremy nods, and everything is turned in a final throw.

The Fairy Queen's Final Favor In a corner of the house, behind a thin curtain, Dapper kneels.

Subtle frees him from the blindfold – too late, but so be it. Dapper mutters that the gag crumbled in his mouth and the fumes of the ritual made him weak. Subtle shakes his head; everything ruined!

"Your aunt? Can I see my aunt?" whimpers Dapper. "Yes," says

Face, in captain's attire again, "for tonight I said the house is haunted, to keep people out. We have a little time. Be quiet, and you shall see."

Dol steps forward, majestic as a queen, strict and gentle at once. Dapper throws himself to his knees and crawls closer, but she raises her hand – stop! "Nephew," she says, "I was angry. But your face is sweet. Rise, kiss the hem." She strokes his head, promises that he will win much, give much, lend much. Subtle reminds him to thank. Dapper is speechless.

She strokes his head, promises that he will win much, give much, lend much. Subtle reminds him to thank. Dapper is speechless.

Then she gives him the gift: a fly in a small pouch. It is so small that it almost disappears in his hand. He is to carry it on his right wrist, open a vein with a pin once a week, let a few drops of blood – only then look at her.

"Play gleek and primero," says Subtle. "Be polite. Not cheap pie. Not breakfast at Heaven and Hell. Stick with the best company."

"Tomorrow you can get a thousand pounds if you want," he says. "Upon my hand!" swears Dapper.

The Queen says he may come often, and maybe inherit three or four hundred chests and twelve thousand acres of fee-land – if he plays nicely with good players. Dapper will give his entire income of forty marks to her, out of pure gratitude. He hops off to fetch the documents.

The final blows: betrayal, escape and marriage.

Face returns, thin-shaven. He fetches Subtle to the door: Drugger is there, he will arrange a priest, for soon – very soon – there will be a wedding.

Dol packs, but she and Subtle whisper about running away. They are tired of Face. They are to load two chests, kiss at the door and travel "eastward" but actually westward to Brentford.

Dol will plunder the widow as much as she can: jewels, bracelets, everything. Subtle nods. They kiss.

Face sees them and asks – and they laugh it off with "joy at progress." He says it's arranged with a priest in the hall.

Everything buzzes.

Then the sound stops. Face asks them to fetch the chests.

He wants the keys. Dol asks why. Subtle purses his lip.

Face drops the mask: My master knows everything, he says softly. He has forgiven me. The house—and everything in it—is his. Our three-party agreement is over. He can lend you a sheet for the sake of the dresses when you jump over the back wall, but the chests stay.

Officers are on their way. If you want to survive, run. Dol seethes, Subtle promises to hang himself and haunt Face in the pantry. They run.

Face stays with the chests, hears drumming outside, calls for the priest. Lovewit arrives in a Spanish cloak. They storm in: Mammon, Surly, Kastril, Ananias, Tribulation, and officers hammering at wood and brass.

Lovewit raises his hand for silence. He says the house is his, the doors open. They can search as much as they like. Jeremy – Face – takes off his collar and cloak and becomes his housekeeper. The crowd scatters into the rooms.

Then the news comes back, scene by scene: Mammon says the nest is empty, he has lost eighteen pounds, plus materials in the cellar.

Lovewit says that legal steps can retrieve what remains – no uproar. Ananias and Tribulation want "the righteous's share" – the goods bought with holy shillings. Lovewit raises his stick. They withdraw. Drugger tries to sneak away but is chased. Surly suddenly discovers that the widow – the countess who slipped away – is on Lovewit's arm.

He has married her. Lovewit jokes that Surly had well-dyed beard and made-up face, but little to show for it. Kastril comes rushing in, grabs his sister by the arm, and scolds her. Lovewit straightens up: "You challenge me?" Kastril softens instantly. He must like this man, he just must! He promises to give his sister five hundred pounds more. "Do you smoke a pipe, sir? Do you drink?" "Jeremy, fill a pipe," says Lovewit. Just a little smoke, and the whole young man becomes as mild as bread. Thus everything falls into place: The cunning servant has steered the storm just hard enough to avoid drowning himself.

He has "outlasted" them all: Subtle who pretended to be a wise man, Surly who pretended to be a Spanish count, Mammon with dreams heavier than lead, Dol with hands that milk gold, Ananias with "lawful casting," Dapper with "aunt," and Drugger with bell, rye, and growling dog. Lovewit – a bit older, a bit wiser, a bit in love – has gained a wife and a house full of stories.

A Farewell in Theatrical Style When the uproar calms and the pipes above the cellar have stopped humming, Face steps forward to the edge of the stage and speaks to us, his "fatherland." He admits that he may have seemed thin in the last scene, but it was all "decorum," fitting. He has escaped everyone he has dealt with, completely clean.

He promises to use what he has received – "pelf," the booty – to treat us often and invite new guests. For what is this house without laughter and the folk who knock on the door? He bows. The curtain may fall.

Afterword on Words That Taste of Another Time Behind the story lies a glossary – a kind of treasure for those who like old words.

Here are strange and amusing expressions that shine with time: cockatrice, a mythical animal used as a term of abuse for a woman; cross and pile, heads and tails; dine with Duke Humphrey, to go hungry. You will also find purse-net, a small net with a drawstring; quacksalver, a quack; and zany, a clown who mimics the leading fool.

Many words have multiple meanings, and some are technical terms for alchemy – chrysopoeia for gold-making, cibation for replenishing a substance that evaporates – or for hunting and law: question as ordeal by combat, seisin for possession, slot for a deer's track. The glossary is arranged alphabetically, with brief explanations. It is like a secret door back to the scene's smell of coal and spice, gold coins and lies, where a 'fly' is a familiar spirit, a 'pelican' a flask, and a 'pelican' in another house perhaps just a bird.

But here, in Lovewit's house, the words themselves became tools in a great game – about greed, faith, friendship, betrayal, and cunning.

What made the story worth reading?

That three people – Subtle, Face, and Dol – heat an empty house into a bubbling cauldron of secrets. That they hunt for dreams like Dapper, who wants to win everything on a card, like Abel, who only wants to set the door straight and get the right customers, like Mammon, who dreams of divinity. That Surly stands in the door like cool truth.

That two Puritans let themselves be convinced about casting as 'not coining'. That a young man wants to learn to be angry in the right way, and a young woman is forced into a shine and title she did not choose. That everything finally explodes – literally – and that the lie lies in shards, but the clever ones survive.

Even the fairy queen appears and gives a fly that drinks blood and promises a thousand pounds before tomorrow evening, if you just hum and buzz and have a clean shirt. The small moments make it great: Dapper hiding a half-crown from his sweetheart, but getting to keep the lead heart.

Abel going out into the street and saying his name aloud, for now it hangs painted on a bell and a man in a rye cloak, and a dog that sniffs "is." Mammon wanting baths that are pits you fall into, then drying yourself in dew and roses. Kastril becoming soft from a pipe and giving his sister five hundred pounds more in dowry.

And Face, who lets the captain's beard fall into the sink to become Jeremy, the soft voice that can call a lie the cat's meow and make neighbors doubt their own eyes. In the end, we are left with what the prologue promised: a laugh that corrects and corrections that laugh. London is full of humor and delight, they say, and Lovewit's house has shown that better than most: no climate breeds better material for whores, pimps, impostors – but also for stories of friendships that nearly break, of chances taken, and of a master who comes home a little too early, but just in time.

And if you ever hear someone whispering in a corner: hum, hum, hum, buzz, buzz, buzz – then you know that someone will soon win, give, lend – or lose everything in an explosion that felt like thunder throughout the whole house. That is the alchemy that is true in this tale: not lead into gold, but lies into laughter, greed into learning, and an empty house into a full theater.

Lovewit and Dame Pliant go in as husband and wife, with the priest's blessing still warm. Face sends the priest out to tell "the others" that the doctor can be heard in West-Chester and the captain in Yarmouth – for dissatisfied customers will search. Out there on the steps stands Surly, grinding his teeth. He, who dressed in borrowed Spanish to expose a lie, still lost the woman he saved.

Mammon lowers his shoulders and says he will sit on a turnip cart and preach about the end of the world – a bit of humor in a crushed heart. Ananias points once more: "Bel and the Dragon's prophets!" – and leaves.

Drugger tries with a cautious "sir," but gets the door. Face remains, adjusts his collar as Jeremy.

He points pointedly at the walls as Lovewit walks through the rooms: Bad poetry, indecent curls, cracked pots and a crucible – no more does a false alchemist leave behind than this. But the story they left behind is greater than the shards. And the last thing Lovewit says, is that a gentleman who gets such fortune through a servant – a widow and so much property – would be ungrateful if he did not help that servant's further fortune. A young wife and a good head can stretch an old man's dignity a bit, he says. He winks. Jeremy smiles as Face again for a moment.

The epilogue lifts everything from the stage and places it in our laps: If we forgive him, Face says, he will use the spoils to treat us often and invite new guests. Trickery is ugly when you are in the middle of it. But in the theatre, when you recognize the face without the beard and hear the sound of hum and buzz, then we laugh because we know that we too can be fooled – with words.

And perhaps that is the lesson the prologue meant: that when you see trickery on stage, you see it better outside as well. Thus ends the swindle that called itself alchemy.

No gold bars, but many images: a bell ringing, a magnet under the threshold, a secret bath, a gag of gingerbread, glasses that become crow's heads before they break, and a pipe that tames an angry boy. And in the middle of it all: a friendship between three who made peace in order to deceive 'heartily and lovingly' – until they finally deceived each other.

In London, where humors last long, you only go around the corner to find the next two hours.