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 at all!_ From early childhood I had been taught that "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth," and, although the present circumstances clearly left me no escape from the conviction that I must be an especial favorite of Heaven, they could not prevent me from compensating my pent-up agony of soul by literally eating seven and a half pages of my last "review." I never knew before what "living on literary diet" meant, but I am wiser now, and do not regret the "dread ordeal" by which I came to know all I do know. Revenge occurred to me as the natural impulse of a man in such a situation; but upon whom was I to be revenged? The government had given currency to all these wild rumors; but it had too many heads for me to punch. The job was bigger than I cared to undertake. The thought occurred to me that I might present a bill of damages. Their sense of justice would allow its fairness. I had been the dupe of false intelligence, the victim of a series of frauds perpetrated to "regulate" the popular feeling. I did not debate the thought, but took my resolution immediately, and drew up the following. LA NOTE. Provisional Government of France. To DICK TINTO, Correspondent, &c., Dr. Francs. To thirty-seven pages foolscap paper, consumed in writing Review of French situation, &c., upon basis of reported French victory near Orleans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.17 To Forty-three pages foolscap paper, consumed in writing Review of French situation, &c., upon basis of reported German victory near Orleans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.95 To astonishment and grief occasioned by report that there had been no battle at all . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150.00 To landlady's boy with red head, by name PIERRE, for carrying messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.10 To general wear and tear of nervous system, consequent upon agitation resulting from uncertainty as to what to believe . 500.00 ______