rky
voice, pausing in the wrong places:

"Be it known to the inhabitants of Goderville and in general to all
persons present at the market that there has been lost this morning on
the Beuzeville road, between nine and ten o'clock, a black leather
pocketbook containing five hundred francs and business papers. You are
requested to return it to the mayor's office at once or to Maitre Fortune
Houlbreque, of Manneville. There will be twenty francs reward."

Then the man went away. They heard once more at a distance the dull
beating of the drum and the faint voice of the crier. Then they all began
to talk of this incident, reckoning up the chances which Maitre
Houlbreque had of finding or of not finding his pocketbook again.

The meal went on. They were finishing their coffee when the corporal of
gendarmes appeared on the threshold.

He asked:

"Is Maitre Hauchecorne, of Breaute, here?"

Maitre Hauchecorne, seated at the other end of the table answered:

"Here I am, here I am."

And he followed the corporal.

The mayor was waiting for him, seated in an armchair. He was the notary
of the place, a tall, grave man of pompous speech.

"Maitre Hauchecorne," said he, "this morning on the Beuzeville road, you
were seen to pick up the pocketbook lost by Maitre Houlbreque, of
Manneville."

The countryman looked at the mayor in amazement frightened already at
this suspicion which rested on him, he knew not why.

"I--I picked up that pocketbook?"

"Yes, YOU."

"I swear I don't even know anything about it."

"You were seen."

"I was seen--I? Who saw me?"

"M. Malandain, the harness-maker."

Then the old man remembered, understood, and, reddening with anger, said:

"Ah! he saw me, did he, the rascal? He saw me picking up this string
here, M'sieu le Maire."

And fumbling at the bottom of his pocket, he pulled out of it the little
end of string.

But the mayor incredulously shook his head:

"You will not make me believe, Maitre Hauchecorne, that M. Malandain, who
is a man whose word can be relied on, has mistaken this string for a
pocketbook."

The peasant, furious, raised his hand and spat on the ground beside him
as if to attest his good faith, repeating:

"For all that, it is God's truth, M'sieu le Maire. There! On my soul's
salvation, I repeat it."

The mayor continued:

"After you picked up the object in question, you even looked about for
some time in the mud to see if a piece of money had not dropp