Atlas Nightshade

Day 119

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,