Then the
baroness, who had eyed him with grim suspicion all the time, said with
well-affected nonchalance, "Doctor, you dropped your purse; we have just
picked it up." And she handed it to him. "Thank you, madame," said he,
and took it quietly without looking at it, put it in his pocket,
and retired, with his soul in his book. They stared comically at one
another, and at this cool hand. "It's no more his than it's mine," said
Jacintha, bluntly. Rose darted after the absorbed student, and took
him captive. "Now, doctor," she cried, "be pleased to come out of the
clouds." And with the word she whipped the purse out of his coat pocket,
and holding it right up before his eye, insisted on his telling her
whether that was his purse or not, money and all. Thus adjured, he
disowned the property mighty coolly, for a retired physician, who had
just pocketed it.
"No, my dear," said he; "and, now I think of it, I have not carried a
purse this twenty years."
The baroness, as a last resource, appealed to his honor whether he had
not left a purse and paper on the knights' bough.
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