Being both, apparently, occupied
      with thought, neither of us had spoken a syllable for fifteen
      minutes at least. All at once Dupin broke forth with these words:

      “He is a very little fellow, that’s true, and would do better for
      the _Théâtre des Variétés_.”

      “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 _et 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. There was not a particle of _charlatânerie_ about Dupin. “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_ with
      the fruiterer in question. The larger links of the chain run
      thus—Chantilly, Orion, Dr. Nichols, 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 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,
      slipped, slightly strained your ankle, appeared vexed or sulky,
      muttered a few words, turned to look 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, which has been paved, by way of
      experiment, with the overlapping and riveted blocks. Here your
      countenance brightened up, and, perceiving your lips move, I
      could not doubt that you murmured the word ‘stereotomy,’ a term
      very affectedly applied to this species of pavement. I knew that
      you could not say to yourself ‘stereotomy’ without being brought
      to think of atomies, and thus of the theories of Epicurus; and
      since, 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 to the great _nebula_ in Orion, and I
      certainly expected that you would do so. You did look up; and I
      was now 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 Latin line about which we have often conversed. I mean the line

     Perdidit antiquum litera prima sonum. “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. 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 that as, in fact, he was a very little
      fellow—that Chantilly—he would do better at the _Théâtre des
      Variétés_.”

      Not long after this, we were looking over an evening edition of
      the “Gazette des Tribunaux,” when the following paragraphs
      arrested our attention. “_Extraordinary Murders_.—This morning, about three o’clock, the
      inhabitants of the Quartier St. Roch were aroused from sleep by a
      succession of terrific shrieks, issuing, apparently, from the
      fourth story of a house in the Rue Morgue, known to be in the
      sole occupancy of one Madame L’Espanaye, and her daughter,
      Mademoiselle Camille L’Espanaye.