“I will explain,” he said, “and that you may comprehend all clearly, we will first retrace the course of your meditations, from the moment in which I spoke to you until that of the rencontre{j} with the fruiterer in question. The larger links of the chain run thus — Chantilly, Orion, Dr. Nichol,{k} (16) Epicurus, Stereotomy, the street stones, the fruiterer.” There are few persons who have not, at some period of their lives, amused themselves in retracing the steps by which particular conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The occupation is often full of interest; and he who attempts it for the first time is{l} astonished by the apparently illimitable distance and incoherence between the starting-point and the goal.(17) What, then, must have been my amazement when I heard the Frenchman speak what he had just spoken, and when I could not help acknowledging that he had spoken the truth. He continued: “We had been talking of horses, if I remember aright, just before leaving the Rue C———. This was the last subject we discussed. As we crossed into this street, a fruiterer, with a large basket upon his head, brushing quickly past us, thrust you upon a pile of paving-stones collected at a spot where the causeway is undergoing repair. You stepped upon one of the loose fragments, slipped, slightly strained your ankle, appeared vexed or sulky, muttered a few words, turned to look{m} at the pile, and then proceeded in silence. I was not particularly attentive to what you did; but observation has become with me, of late, a species of necessity. “You kept your eyes upon the ground — glancing, with a petulant expression, at the holes and ruts in the pavement, (so that I saw you were still thinking of the stones,) until we reached the little alley called Lamartine,(18) which has been paved, by way of [page 536:] experiment, with the overlapping and riveted blocks.(19) Here your countenance brightened up, and, perceiving your lips move, I could not doubt that you murmured{n} the{oo} word ‘stereotomy,’ a term very affectedly applied to this species of pavement.{oo} I knew that you could not {pp}say to yourself ‘stereotomy’ without{pp}, being brought to think of atomies, and thus of the theories of Epicurus;(20) and since{q} when we discussed this subject not very long ago, I mentioned to you how singularly, yet with how little notice, the vague guesses of that noble Greek had met with confirmation in the late nebular cosmogony, I felt that you could not avoid casting your eyes upward{r} to the great nebula{s} in Orion,(21) and I certainly expected that you would do so. You did look up; and I was now{t} assured that I had correctly followed your steps. But in that bitter tirade upon Chantilly, which appeared in yesterday's ‘Musée,’ the satirist, making some disgraceful allusions to the cobbler's change of name upon assuming the buskin, quoted a{u} Latin line{v} about which{w} we have often conversed. I mean the line {xx}Perdidit antiquum litera prima sonum{xx} I had told you that this was in reference to Orion, formerly written Urion; and, from certain pungencies connected with this explanation, I was aware that you could not have forgotten it.(22) It was clear, therefore, that you would not fail to combine the two ideas of Orion and Chantilly. That you did combine them I saw by the character of the smile which passed over your lips. You thought of the poor cobbler's immolation. So far, you had been stooping in your gait; but now I saw you draw yourself up to your full height. I was then sure that you reflected upon the diminutive figure of Chantilly. At this point I interrupted your meditations to remark [page 537:] that as, in fact, he was a very little fellow — that Chantilly — he would do better at the Théâtre des Variétés.”{y}

It is the ancestor of a vast number of works which have given much harmless pleasure to all sorts and conditions of men.