"Monsieur Gaston Emile Le Bour, agriculturist at Hirondelette, charges Monsieur Charles Louis Ernest Tanrade, born in Paris, soldier of the Thirteenth Infantry, musician, composer, with flagrant trespass in his buckwheat on hectare number seven, armed with the gun of percussion on the thirtieth of September at ten-forty-five in the morning."
"I was not in his sacré buckwheat!" declared Tanrade, and he described the entire incident of the morning.
"Take monsieur's denial in detail," commanded the tall one.
His companion produced a small bottle of ink and began to write slowly with a scratchy pen, while we stood in silence.
"Kindly add your signature, monsieur," said the tall one, when the bottle was again recorked.
Tanrade signed.
The gendarmes gravely saluted and were about to withdraw when Tanrade asked if he was "the only unfortunate on the list."
"Ah, non!" confessed the tall one. "There is a similar charge against Monsieur le Vicomte—we have just called upon him. Also against Monsieur le Baron."
"And what did they say?"