es appeared on the road. They were walking
slowly side by side, glittering in the sun with their shining hats,
their yellow accoutrements and their metal buttons, as if to frighten
evildoers, and to put them to flight at a distance. He knew that they
were coming after him, but he did not move, for he was seized with a
sudden desire to defy them, to be arrested by them, and to have his
revenge later.

They came on without appearing to have seen him, walking heavily, with
military step, and balancing themselves as if they were doing the goose
step; and then, suddenly, as they passed him, appearing to have noticed
him, they stopped and looked at him angrily and threateningly, and the
brigadier came up to him and asked: "What are you doing here?" "I am
resting," the man replied calmly. "Where do you come from?" "If I had
to tell you all the places I have been to it would take me more than an
hour." "Where are you going to?" "To Ville-Avary." "Where is that?" "In
La Manche." "Is that where you belong?" "It is." "Why did you leave it?"
"To look for work."

The brigadier turned to his gendarme and said in the angry voice of a
man who is exasperated at last by an oft-repeated trick: "They all say
that, these scamps. I know all about it." And then he continued: "Have
you any papers?" "Yes, I have some." "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 t