"

The rural policeman made his deposition: He had gone out that morning at
his usual time, in order to patrol his beat from the forest of Champioux
as far as the boundaries of Argenteuil. He had not noticed anything
unusual in the country except that it was a fine day, and that the wheat
was doing well, when the son of old Bredel, who was going over his vines,
called out to him: "Here, Daddy Hochedur, go and have a look at the
outskirts of the wood. In the first thicket you will find a pair of
pigeons who must be a hundred and thirty years old between them!"

He went in the direction indicated, entered the thicket, and there he
heard words which made him suspect a flagrant breach of morality.
Advancing, therefore, on his hands and knees as if to surprise a poacher,
he had arrested the couple whom he found there.

The mayor looked at the culprits in astonishment, for the man was
certainly sixty, and the woman fifty-five at least, and he began to
question them, beginning with the man, who replied in such a weak voice
that he could scarcely be heard.

"What is your name?"

"Nicholas Beaurain."

"Your occupation?"

"Haberdasher, in the Rue des Martyrs, in Paris."

"What were you doing in the wood?"

The haberdasher remained silent, with his eyes on his fat paunch, and his
hands hanging at his sides, and the mayor continued:

"Do you deny what the officer of the municipal authorities states?"

"No, monsieur."

"So you confess it?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"What have you to say in your defence?"

"Nothing, monsieur."

"Where did you meet the partner in your misdemeanor?"

"She is my wife, monsieur."

"Your wife?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"Then--then--you do not live together-in Paris?"

"I beg your pardon, monsieur, but we are living together!"

"But in that case--you must be mad, altogether mad, my dear sir, to
get caught playing lovers in the country at ten o'clock in the morning."

The haberdasher seemed ready to cry with shame, and he muttered: "It was
she who enticed me! I told her it was very stupid, but when a woman once
gets a thing into her head--you know--you cannot get it out."

The mayor, who liked a joke, smiled and replied: "In your case, the
contrary ought to have happened. You would not be here, if she had had
the idea only in her head."

Then Monsieur Beauain was seized with rage and turning to his wife, he
said: "Do you see to what you have brought us with your poetry? And now
we shall