a pang. Sheer mortification soon lulled me to sleep, however, and when a
second banging at my door awakened me it was nightfall, and there were
sounds of rapid movement and confusion outside. I put my head out of the
window and heard a voice below, shouting:

"The Germans are coming!"

"S'death!" said I to myself, "what am I going to do?" My last stitch of
clothing, save what I had on my back, was in the hands of the
_blanchisseuse_, and PIERRE of the carrot "top" had possession of my
only pair of trousers for the purpose of cleaning them the following
morning. It would not have been a pleasant paragraph for me to read in
the newspapers that a correspondent bearing my name had been captured
_in puris naturalibus_. It would never do for an American to be taken
_sans culottes_, and then have the story of his surprise reviewed by
English and Yankee critics.

I don't know what I might have done in my distress; but kind fortune
favored me, for the landlady, anticipating the probability of my being
disturbed by the commotion, knocked at the door to say that it was a
false alarm, and that the Germans, though victorious, had halted ten or
twelve miles from the city. Promptly, therefore, I dashed into the midst
of another review of the French situation, predicated upon the late
French defeat. It was what I might call a perfect "stinger." It used
France up completely. The _grande nation_ wasn't left a peg to stand on;
and as for King WILLIAM, I proved him to be a butcher of the most
surpassing kind. In the short space of two hours I had covered
forty-three pages more of foolscap, and was about entering on my
forty-fourth, when there came a banging at my door for the third time,
and a despatch was handed me announcing that there _had been no battle