The peasant, furious, raised his hand, and spit at his side to bear witness to his honour, repeating: "F'r all that, it's God's truth, holy truth, your worship. There! My soul and my salvation knows it's true!" The mayor resumed: "After having picked the article up, you even searched also a long while in the mud to make sure if money had fallen out of it." The good man choked with rage and terror. "If them can say--if them can say--such lies as that to take away an honest man's name! If them can say--" However he might protest, he was not believed. He was confronted by Master Malandain, who repeated and supported his statement. They railed at each other for an hour. Master Hauchecorne demanded that they search his pockets. Nothing was found upon him. Finally, the mayor, very much perplexed, let him go with the warning that he would inform the public prosecutor, and ask for orders. The news had spread abroad. When he came out of the mayor's office, the old man was the centre of curiosity and questioning, both serious and jeering, but into which not the least resentment entered. And he began recounting the long rigmarole of the string. They did not believe him. They grinned. He went along, stopped by every one, or accosting his acquaintances, going over and over his story and his protestations, pointing to his pockets turned inside out to prove he had nothing. They said to him: "Come now, you old rascal!" And he became angry, exasperated, feverish, disconsolate at being doubted, and forever telling his story. Night fell. It became time to go home. He started out with three of his neighbours, to whom he pointed out the spot where he had picked up the bit of string; and, all along the road, he recited his adventure. That evening he made a round of the village of Bréauté so as to tell everyone. He found only unbelievers. He was ill of it all through the night. The next day about one in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle, a farm helper of Master Breton, the market-gardener at Ymauville, returned the pocket-book and its contents to Master Houlbreque of Manneville. This man maintained he had found it on the road, but, not knowing how to read, had carried it home and turned it over to his master. The news spread to the suburbs. Master Hauchecorne was informed. Immediately he set himself the task of going about relating his story, capping it with this climax. He was triumphant. "What hurt me the mostest," he said, "was not the thing itself, don't you see, but the lies. Nothing hurts so as when lies 's told about you." All day long he talked of his adventure. He told it on the roads to the people passing, at the tavern to people who were drinking, and then to the people coming out of church the next Sunday. He even stopped strangers to tell them the tale. He felt relieved by this time, yet something troubled him without his knowing just what it was. People had a mocking manner as they listened.