He had on a large belt that transformed the upper part of his shirt into a sack. His hand went by turns down to the ground and up to his neck, and he soon had the figure of Punch. While the guard studied the weather, his nose lifted up towards the sky, the man sneaked away, slipped into his house, emptied his belt, came back, and began again. Alas, came the moment when the guard discovered the trick! This guard was a holy man, fat, stout, demure-looking, a canting preacher, who not only took the apostleship of his nation for granted, but his own too. When the misappropriated potatoes had got back to the Prussian sacks our Mr. Smooth-Tongue looked at the grieved culprit--grieved at having been caught--looked at the hollow-cheeked faces around him, at the sunken, jaded eyes. He paused before speaking, tossed his head three times, and said: "How perverse are the French! Don't you know that stealing is forbidden? And don't you know that the potatoes belong to the Germans? Now then, by taking our potatoes you commit a theft. It is a disgrace. Be sure you never do such a thing again!" Such talk was to be heard from many Germans. It suits them. I delight in hearing them sing this tune, the _Gazette des Ardennes_ at their head, and cry up to the skies the good, the beautiful. They go still further, and my joy increases. They laud the love of their neighbour, respect for the property of others, compassion towards the weak; they extol the meekness, the goodness, the infinite sweet temper of Germany. But oh! it is ever to be regretted that so many noble words should be delivered in vain. Such rubbish does not take with us. "Their _Gazette des Ardennes_!" exclaimed a farmer's wife. "We buy it only to read the list of French prisoners, and because there is no other newspaper. But when my husband reads it, he never leaves off thumping on the table, and rapping out oaths from beginning to end. Since those filthy fellows have settled themselves down here, one has never a fine word in one's mouth!" "The other day," another woman told us, "my husband had to bring vegetables to Laon. He went to have his pass signed; the sergeant held out his hand to take the paper and said: 'Well, comrade?' My husband gave no answer, but he thought to himself: 'You my comrade! I would rather kick you soundly than call you that.'" Our sense of impotence was never greater than in the month of August, when the Germans trumpeted abroad with a sneer the defeat of the Russians, and oh, sacrilege! ordered our own bells to be rung to celebrate the glorious deeds of the German army! But in September hope rose in our hearts, and filled them with joy. The offensive began in Champagne. The cannon raged as never before. How they rolled and shook and roared! And to our minds the uproar was suave, the rumbling was blessed.