family, for she was sitting at a late breakfast all alone. The family
came in; they all tasted, and looked, and wondered what should be
done, and all sat down to think.

At last Agamemnon, who had been to college, said, " Why don't
we go over and ask the advice of the chemist? " (For the chemist
lived over the way, and was a very wise man.) Mrs. Peterkin
said, "Yes," and Mr. Peterkin said, "Very well," and all the
children said they would go too. So the little boys put on their
india-rubber boots, and over they went.

Now the chemist was just trying to find out something which
should turn everything it touched into gold; and he had a large
glass bottle into which he put all kinds of gold and silver, and
many other valuable things, and melted them all up over the fire,
till he had almost found what he wanted. He could turn things
into almost gold. But just now he had used up all the gold that he
had round the house, and gold was high. He had used up his wife's
gold thimble and his great-grandfather's gold-bowed spectacles;
and he had melted up the gold head of his
great-great-grandfather's cane; and, just as the Peterkin family
came in, he was down on his knees before his wife, asking her to
let him have her wedding-ring to melt up with an the rest, because
this time he knew he should succeed, and should be able to turn
everything into gold; and then she could have a new wedding-ring
of diamonds, all set in emeralds and rubies and topazes, and all
the furniture could be turned into the finest of gold.

Now his wife was just consenting when the Peterkin family burst
in. You can imagine how mad the chemist was! He came near