who approached him were immediately thrown down--scattered over the plain. But his triumph was suddenly checked; he lighted upon a piece of asphalte pavement. The moment he put his foot upon it, his strength deserted him, and he was seized and taken prisoner. The instant, however, he stepped off the pavement, his strength revived, and he threw his assailants from him with the same ease as before. And thus it continued: whenever he got off the pavement, his strength was restored to him; the moment he touched it, he was again captured with facility. The asphalte had completely isolated him." "Ha! ha!" cried Mr Bloomfield; "the fellow, after all, was not quite so mad as not to know what he was about. A Brussels pavement, asphalte or not, is no place for a wrestling match. Isolated, indeed! Oh, doubtless, it would isolate you most completely--at least the soles of your feet--from all communication with the earth. But does Mr--what do you call him?--proceed to theorise upon such _facts_ as these?" "You shall have another of them. Speaking of animal magnetism or electricity, he says--'There are certain patients the iron nails of whose shoes will fly out if they are laid in a direction due north.'"[41] [41] "Il existe des malades dont les clous jai'lissent des chaussures quand ils sont étendus dans la direction du nord." "But you are quoting from Baron Munchausen." "Not precisely." Miss Bloomfield, who had been watching her opportunity, here brought in her contribution. "Pray, sir, do you believe the story they tell of the architect of the Hotel de Ville--that he destroyed himself on finding, after he had built it, that the tower was not in the centre?" "That the architect should not discover that till the building was finished, is indeed _too good a story to be true_." "But, then, why make the man kill himself? Something must have happened; something must be true." "Why, madam, there was, no doubt, a committee of taste in those days as in ours. They destroyed the plan of the architect by cutting short one of his wings, or prolonging the other; and he, out of vexation, destroyed himself. This is the only explanation that occurs to me. A committee of taste is always, in one sense at least, the death of the artist." "Yes, yes," said Mildred; "the artist can be no longer said to exist, if he is not allowed, in his own sphere, to be supreme." This brought them to the door of the hotel. They separated. The next morning, on returning from their walk, the ladies found a card upon their table which simply bore the name of "Alfred Winston." The gentleman who called with it, the waiter said, had left word that he regretted he was about to quit Brussels, that evening, for Paris. Mildred read the name several times--Alfred Winston. And this was all she knew of him--the name upon this little card!