“That is also my way of doing business, if I may say so without offence to you.”
“Ho! woman!” cried the first officer, addressing an old woman as wrinkled as a dried pear, “didn’t you see two men pass this way?”
“I could not see any such persons,” responded the beggar, “because I could not see any thing, having been blind for now twenty years; for twenty years I have been deprived of the light of heaven.”
“Ah! that alters the case.”
“I have not seen them; but, my good sir, I certainly heard them.”
“Then they have gone this way?”
“They have gone and returned. By this time they ought to be in Paris, for they arrived in time for the train.”
The gendarmes expressed their disappointment in the phraseology peculiar to their calling.
“My good woman,” said one, “you can perhaps give us some information. Speak without fear.”
The gendarme spoke majestically, as the representative of the law.