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.