Mack had devised a scheme to rob the prominent doctor, figuring that a magician like Faust who has piled up goods in Heaven has little need for the dross of this Earth. Mack had accordingly taken unto himself a confederate, a loutish Lett who had no skill but the ability to waylay passersby by knocking them over the head with his cudgel. Mack had determined that this was the very day on which he would divest Faust of his more portable worldly goods.

For a week Mack and the Lett had scouted out the territory and noted the movements of the good doctor. Faust was a moody sort and not given to those regularities of habit that make honest men so easy to steal from. For one thing, he stayed indoors a lot, pursuing his magical experiments. But even Faust had to come out occasionally, and when he did, his footsteps always moved in a preordained direction, down Little Casimir Street and into the Devil's Walk, the shortcut to the great Jagiellonian University.

When at last Faust emerged on this Easter Sunday, Mack's scheme was set and all was in readiness. The Lett had been stationed in a dark doorway in the alley, and Mack took up his position at the Tavern of the Pied Cow opposite Faust's dwelling place. And now the time had come, for the Lett had agreed to rush back to the tavern to warn Mack if anything went wrong at his end. Mack finished his borscht, laid down a copper coin for payment, and, moving in a leisurely way that belied his inner excitement, strolled over to the doctor's residence. A glance up and down the street ascertained that the good folk of the neighborhood were away for Easter services. Under his arm Mack had a parcel of books purporting to give magical formulas. He had picked them up at no cost from a monastery library in Czvniez. If the unexpected should occur and someone should enquire as to his purpose in the doctor's house, Mack could say he was delivering these books, or offering them to the doctor for sale; for Faust was known to collect such things in his quest for the formula for the Philosopher's Stone.