"Give them to me."

Randel took his papers out of his pocket, his certificates, those poor,
worn-out, dirty papers which were falling to pieces, and gave them to the
soldier, who spelled them through, hemming and hawing, and then, having
seen that they were all in order, he gave them back to Randel with the
dissatisfied look of a man whom some one cleverer than himself has
tricked.

After a few moments' further reflection, he asked him: "Have you any
money on you?" "No." "None whatever?" "None." "Not even a sou?" "Not even
a son!" "How do you live then?" "On what people give me." "Then you beg?"
And Randel answered resolutely: "Yes, when I can."

Then the gendarme said: "I have caught you on the highroad in the act of
vagabondage and begging, without any resources or trade, and so I command
you to come with me." The carpenter got up and said: "Wherever you
please." And, placing himself between the two soldiers, even before he
had received the order to do so, he added: "Well, lock me up; that will
at any rate put a roof over my head when it rains."

And they set off toward the village, the red tiles of which could be seen
through the leafless trees, a quarter of a league off. Service was about
to begin when they went through the village. The square was full of
people, who immediately formed two lines to see the criminal pass. He was
being followed by a crowd of excited children. Male and female peasants
looked at the prisoner between the two gendarmes, with hatred in their
eyes and a longing to throw stones at him, to tear his skin with their
nails, to trample him under their feet. They asked each other whether he
had committed murder or robbery. The butcher, who was an ex-'spahi',
declared that he was a deserter. The tobacconist thought that he
recognized him as the man who had that very morning passed a bad
half-franc piece off on him, and the ironmonger declared that he was the
murderer of Widow Malet, whom the police had been looking for for six
months.

In the municipal court, into which his custodians took him, Randel saw
the mayor again, sitting on the magisterial bench, with the schoolmaster
by his side. "Aha! aha!" the magistrate exclaimed, "so here you are
again, my fine fellow. I told you I should have you locked up. Well,
brigadier, what is he charged with?"

"He is a vagabond without house or home, Monsieur le Maire, without any
resources or money, so he says, who was arrested in the act of begging,