Bow before me!

Lo! I have occasioned this morn, after many weary nights with my alembics bubbling and braziers glowing, to stumble upon The Secret! By accident; by the subtle hand of Providence (or some darker Power), I have been given a great gift! Soon, all the beasts of the field and birds of the air, yea, even man himself will call me master!

I will confess to you certain things, things I would not want the Queen to know, no, nor any of her minions. I will speak these words in a hushed tone, knowing your fidelity to me.

After a long and weary night, and woken too early by the soft murmurings of the Radio Publick, I applied myself diligently to the magics and toilings of my profession. You who know not of these magics may be deceived by the glimmering lights and rolling smoke which surround any such who practice as I do. ‘Struth, there are days when even the booming voices of the daemons we control are as drab as the stones we walk on, and the smoke and lights as tiresome as the incessant buzz of bloodsucking flies.

As Apollo climbed to his highest point, I felt the pangs of hunger ring inside me. Walking to the shelf, I chanced (or, mayhap, my hand was guided) to a cylinder of metal. This metal promised, in garish and lurid characters, to be filled with some part of a pink-flesh’d fish, transported to me from Al’aska, or someplace as foreign. I opened the metal… Ye gods, I opened the metal, and scarcely was the cylinder breach’d when the three animals closest to me (all cats, in some coincidence) turned, as if compelled, and faced me, and spoke to me in tones most entreating, that this one was the deserving one, that the other cat was unworthy, that I should share the bounty of the cylinder with this cat alone.

My mind felt afire. Here, in my abode, were three animals (oddly, all cats) normally no more obedient than the zephyrs of summer, and yet now, holding this metal, I would turn to the right and find all three before me; turn to the left, and the three appeared from the very air, like the djinni of legend.

So now you know my secret. You and you alone will know how I accomplish my every goal for the rest of my life – surely, having compelled cats, this cylinder shall allow me to command all before me, man, beast, yea, even the rocks themselves will look at me and my can, and lick their lips, and plead with me to share its bounty. I shall refuse, until they have elevated me and made me their king, and even then I will have to be parsimonious with the contents, as I combined fully half the can with the mayonnaise I created yesterday, some celery and capers and mustard, and put it over green leaves, and had it for lunch.