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 astonished by the apparently illimitable
distance and incoherence between the starting-point and the goal.
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,
