"I did not," he retorted. This was in response to her first comment about knowing the basket belonged to someone, though it applied just as well to her second. He had never been in urgent need of ribbons of any sort and didn't anticipate that changing any time in the foreseeable future. "You left it on the table with all the other things for sale," he pointed out (hopefully correctly; he hadn't gotten enough of a look at the table to know whether they actually were selling anything, and realized he was going to look very silly if this was actually just a place for young women to mill about and drink cocoa, or something). "How was I supposed to know it belonged to anybody?"

Though, in fairness, if it was mostly ribbons he probably shouldn't have been pawing through it anyway. Maybe next time he ought to look a little closer before he touched, no matter where people put their things down. But also in fairness, if she was going to go leaving her basket in the middle of a table full of goods for sale she shouldn't be pulling a parasol out as a weapon the first time someone touched it.

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