"There can be no doubt of that," I replied unwittingly, and not at first observing (so much had I been absorbed in reflection) the extraordinary manner in which the speaker had chimed in with my meditations. In an instant afterward I recollected myself, and my astonishment was profound.

"Dupin," said I, gravely, "this is beyond my comprehension. I do not hesitate to say that I am amazed, and can scarcely credit my senses.

How was it possible you should know I was thinking of____________________?" Here I paused, to ascertain beyond a doubt whether he really knew of whom I thought.

"____________________of Chantilly," said he, "why do you pause? You were remarking to yourself that his diminutive figure unfitted him for tragedy."

This was precisely what had formed the subject of my reflections. Chantilly was a «quondam» cobbler of the Rue St. Denis, who, becoming stage-mad, had attempted the «rôle» of Xerxes, in Crébillon's tragedy so called, and been notoriously Pasquinaded for his pains.

"Tell me, for Heaven's sake," I exclaimed, "the method-if method there is-by which you have been enabled to fathom my soul in this matter." In fact I was even more startled than I would have been willing to express.

"It was the fruiterer," replied my friend, "who brought you to the conclusion that the mender of soles was not of sufficient height for Xerxes «el id genus omne."«

"The fruiterer!-you astonish me-I know no fruiterer whomsoever."

"The man who ran up against you as we entered the street-it may have been fifteen minutes ago."

I now remembered that, in fact, a fruiterer, carrying upon his head a large basket of apples, had nearly thrown me down, by accident, as we passed from the Rue C____________________into the thoroughfare where we stood; but what this had to do with Chantilly I could not possibly understand.