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The Porter sat in his small rooh thethat opened into the lodge Behind hieonholes for the use of Scholars, and for Lyra too, and as she was running her finger quickly down the list of residents in Jericho she heard a cheery voice from inside

"Are you after the alchemist, Lyra?"

And Dr Polstead's ginger face leaned out of the Porter's , bea at her curiously

"The alchemist?" she said

"The only Makepeace I've ever heard of is a chap called Sebastian," he said, fu with some papers "Used to be a Scholar of Merton, till he went ed to tell, in that place He devoted hiing lead into gold, or trying to You can see him in Bodley, sometioes h Daemon's a black cat What are you after him for?"

Lyra had found the name: a house in Juxon Street

"Miss Parker was telling us about when she was a girl," she said, with a bright, open candor, "and she said there was a William Makepeace who used to make treacle toffee better than anyone, and I wondered if he was still there soet some for her I think Miss Parker's the best teacher I ever had," she went on earnestly, "and she's so pretty too, she's not just dull like most teachers Maybe I'll make her some toffee myself"

There was no such person as Miss Parker, and Dr Polstead had been Lyra's unwilling teacher himself for a difficult six weeks, two or three years before

"Jolly good idea," he said "Treacle toffee Mmm"

"Thank you, Mr Shuter," said Lyra, and she laid the books on the shelf before darting out into Turl Street, with Pan at her heels, and made for the Parks and St Sophia's

Fifteen minutes later, breathless, she sat down to dinner in the hall, trying to keep her grubby hands froh table every day; instead, the Scholars were encouraged to sit a the students, and the teachers and older pupils from the school, of whoood manners not to sit with a clique of the same friends all the time, and it eneral rather than close and gossipy

Tonight Lyra found herself sitting between an elderly Scholar, a historian called Miss Greenwood, and a girl at the head of the school, four years older than Lyra was As they ate their minced lamb and boiled potatoes, Lyra said:

"Miss Greenwood, when did they stop doing alchemy?"

"They? Which they, Lyra?"

"The people whoI suppose the people who think about things It used to be part of experiy, didn't it?"

"That's right And in fact the alchemists made many discoveries, about the action of acids and so on But they had a basic idea about the universe that didn't hold up, and when a better one ca, the structure that kept their ideas in place just fell apart The people who think about things, as you call theer and s, you see, more fully, more accurately"

"But when?"

"I don't think there've been any serious alchemists for two hundred and fifty years Apart from the famous Oxford alchemist"

"Who was that?"

"I forget his name Irony--why do I say that? He's still alive--an eccentric ex-scholar You find people like that on the fringes of scholarship--genuinely brilliant, sometimes--but cracked, you know, possessed by some crazy idea that has no basis in reality, but which see the whole cosic, really"

Miss Greenwood's daemon, a marmoset, said from the back of her chair:

"Makepeace That was his name"

"Of course! I kneas ironic"

"Why?" said Lyra

"Because he was said to be very violent There was a court case--ot off, as far as I reossip"

"Lyra," said the girl on her left, "would you like to co? There's a recital by Michael Coke--you know, the flautist"

Lyra didn't know "Oh, Ruth, I wish I could," she said "But I'm so behind with my Latin--I really must do some work"