Somewhat after this fashion I harangued Halicarnassus, who was shamed into silence, but not turned from his purpose; but the next morning he came up from below after breakfast, and informed me, with an air mingled of the condescension of the monarch and the resignation of the martyr, that, as I was so scrupulous about travelling on the Sabbath, he had concluded not to go till Monday afternoon. No, I said, I did not wish to assume the conduct of affairs. I had given my protest, and satisfied my own conscience; but I was not head of the party, and did not choose to assume the responsibility of its movements. I did not think it right to travel on Sunday, but neither do I think it right for one person to compel a whole party to change its plans out of deference to his scruples. So I insisted that I would not cause detention. But Halicarnassus insisted that he would not have my conscience forced. Now it would seem natural that so tender and profound a regard for my scruples would have moved me to a tender and profound gratitude; but nobody understands Halicarnassus except myself. He is a dark lane, full of crooks and turns,--a labyrinth which nobody can thread without the clew. That clew I hold. I know him. I can walk right through him in the darkest night without any lantern. He is fully aware of it. He knows that it is utterly futile for him to attempt to deceive me, and yet, with the infatuation of a lunatic, he is continually producing his flimsy little fictions for me as continually to blow away. For instance, when we were walking down the path to the steps of Montmorency, Grande called out in delight at some new and beautiful white flowers beside the path. What were they? I did not know. What are they, Halicarnassus? "Ah! wax-flowers," says he, coming up, and Grande passed on content, as would ninety-nine out of a hundred; but an indescribable something in his air convinced me that he was not drawing on his botany for his facts. I determined to get at the root of the matter. "Do you mean," I asked, "that the name of those flowers is wax-flowers?" "Of course," he replied. "Why not?" "Do you mean," I persisted, confirmed in my suspicions by his remarkable question, "that you know that they are wax-flowers, or that you do not know that they are not wax-flowers?" "Why, look at 'em for yourself. Can't you see with your own eyes?" he ejaculated, attempting to walk on. I planted myself full in front of him. "Halicarnassus, one step further except over my lifeless body you do not go, until you tell me whether those are or are not wax-flowers?" "Well," he said, brought to bay at last, and sheepishly enough whisking off the heads of a dozen or two with his cane, "if they are not that, they are something else." There!