The Captain retired in great wrath. The following day the doctor told me that I would have to be at the gendarmerie at two o'clock.
When I arrived there I found an old Corporal of the gendarmes sitting at a table, with another gendarme standing near him. He asked for my name, regimental number, and, as usual in France, I had also to give him full particulars about my father and mother. Having taken all this down, he told me to put up my right hand, and to swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. Having thus administered the oath to me he began to question me.
"You had a suit of civilian clothes?" he first asked.
"Well," I replied, "I had, and still have, a good many."
"Why do you have a good many?"
"Because I did not always wear the same suit."
"But you had a suit of clothes which has been stolen from you by the Sergeant-major Vaillant?"
"No," I said, "I have had no suit of clothes stolen from me. I lent Sergeant-major Vaillant a suit of clothes, if that is what you are driving at."
"What!" exclaimed the gendarme, evidently much astonished, "how can you say that Sergeant-major Vaillant did not steal a suit of clothes from you when your Captain says he did!"
"I don't know what the Captain says," I replied, "and what he says does not concern me. I am here on my oath, I have sworn to tell the truth, and all you have to do is to take down my words."