Traveling cross-country to Monmouth's camp, Decimus immediately commences looking for opportunities for plunder: "What would war be without plunder! A bottle without wine -- a shell without the oyster."
Of Micah's increasingly strong and angry moral remonstrances, he jests: "Od's mercy! I see you will start carving me anon and take me to Monmouth's camp in sections."
In one village, Micah and Decimus encounter two Royal officers strangely conversant in the latest theories of chemistry.
Later (they have now been joined by Micah's loyal friend Reuben) the adventurers arrive at the secluded cabin of a dispossessed noble, Sir Jacob Clancing of Snellaby, who has turned to alchemy.
In service to Charles I, Sir Jacob had experienced a different kind of transmutation as he converted his wealth and property into military resources for the doomed King: "My silver chargers and candlesticks were thrown into the melting-pot . . . they went in metal and came out as troopers and pikemen."
With Cromwell's success, Sir Jacob's estate goes to a baser kind of alchemist: a soapmaker.
Upon the Stuart Restoration, Sir Jacob seeks restitution from Charles II, but is offered instead a commission as a "lottery cavalier," a licensed keeper of a gambling house "allowed to have a den in the piazza of Covent Garden, and there to decoy the young sparks of the town and fleece them at ombre."
Incensed to see the dissolute Stuarts waste on their revels money they deny to those nobles seeking restitution, Sir Jacob retires from court in order to painstakingly rebuild his fortune through his alchemical knowledge.
The doubtful and greedy Decimus: "Perhaps you have found out how to convert pots and pans into gold in the way you have spoken of. But that cannot be, for I see iron and brass in this room which would hardly remain there could you convert it to gold."
Sir Jacob: "Gold has its uses and iron has its uses . . . It can indeed be done, but only slowly and in order, small pieces at a time, and with much expenditure of work and patience."
Observing a locked chest, Decimus determines to rob Sir Jacob of his gold. Answering Micah's objections: "he can make more as easily as your good mother maketh cranberry dumplings."
Micah stays awake to protect his host's possessions from his plundering companion.
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