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 dropped out of
it."

The good man was choking with indignation and fear.

"How can they tell--how can they tell such lies as that to slander an
honest man! How can they?"

His protestations were in vain; he was not believed.

He was confronted with M. Malandain, who repeated and sustained his
testimony. They railed at one another for an hour. At his own request
Maitre Hauchecorne was searched. Nothing was found on him.

At last the mayor, much perplexed, sent him away, warning him that he
would inform the public prosecutor and ask for orders.

The news had spread. When he left the mayor's office the old man was
surrounded, interrogated with a curiosity which was serious or mocking,
as the case might be, but into which no indignation entered. And he
began to tell the story of the string. They did not believe him. They
laughed.

He passed on, buttonholed by every one, himself buttonholing his
acquaintances, beginning over and over again his tale and his
protestations, showing his pockets turned inside out to prove that he
had nothing in them.

They said to him:

"You old rogue!"

He grew more and more angry,