As ever, when we came to the market-stalls, it was "Give place to the
Hôtel de Ville!" While I made my purchases, an old man came up to the
butcher-fellow who was serving, and asked him civilly for a piece of the
indifferent beef he was cutting for me. The rascal, a beast of Burgundy,
dazed with absinthe and pig by nature, answered foully after his kind.
The old man was very old, but his face was that of a man of war. He
lifted his stick as though to strike, for he had a beautiful young girl
on his arm. But I saw the lip of the Burgundian butcher draw up over his
teeth like a snarling dog, and his hand shorten on his knife.

"Have politeness," I said sharply to the rascal, "or I will on my return
report you to the General, and have you fusiladed!"

This made him afraid, for indeed the thing was commonly done at that
time.

The old man smiled and held out his hand to me. He said--

"My friend, some day I may be able to repay you, but not now."

Yet I had interfered as much for the sake of the lady's eyes as for the
sake of the old man's grey hairs. Besides, the butcher was but a pig of
a Burgundian who daily maligned the Prussians with words like pig's
offal.

Then we went back along the shell-battered streets, empty of carriages,
for all the horses had been eaten, some as beef and some as plain horse.

"Monsieur the Commissary," said one of the porters, "do you know that