"A pretty request, truly!" Mme. Tassin was nowhere. The omelette, done to a turn, was getting cold in the kitchen. Meanwhile Herr Mayor was waiting in the dining-room. It was high time that the dish should make the guest's acquaintance. I made up my mind. "I will take his dinner to the man." "Never! You wait at table!" "And upon a Prussian!" "He did it on purpose, of course." I persisted. "I assure you I shall not deem myself degraded. And I promise you the man will feel uneasy sooner than I." So beneath Herr Mayor's haughty nose I put the omelette _aux fines herbes_. To the same nose I presented the roast veal with boiled potatoes, which is dear to all German hearts, and thought I might rest on my laurels. Then I saw that I had forgotten the sauce. Herr Mayor was chewing dry veal, sunk in melancholy. I put the sauce-boat on the table within reach of his hand. "I had forgotten this; I am not in the habit...." What did I say? Herr Mayor looked uneasy. He nearly begged my pardon.... "Indeed, I am afraid I disturb you...." Ah! you deign to notice it? And you might as well have dined at the village inn? But you don't think that you and your ten gormandisers have reduced our stock of vegetables to nothing, and swallowed up our last egg! But you have not always an officer at hand to give you information, and so I thought I might improve the occasion. "What is the cannon," I asked, "which thunders day and night in the south?" "We have been fighting in Craonne for the last ten days," said he; "the battle is said to be coming to an end. Just before we were in Fismes." Herr Mayor pronounced Fismesse. In a doleful tone he bewailed the evils of war. The regiment he belonged to had suffered forty per cent losses since the beginning of war. He himself felt very ill. He had slept in the open air seven rainy nights running. Had I any kinsman in the war? "Of course, my husband; and I get no news at all from him. That is the worst of all privations." Herr Mayor nodded assent. These partings were cruel. Frau Mayor, too, would have given a good deal to accompany her Mayor. As to ourselves, our situation might change for the better. It was, for instance, to our interest that the Germans should advance. The front would then be removed farther from us. I answered that we should welcome no such change for the better. But suppose that just the reverse happened? If the Germans were driven back, the front would also remove farther? Wouldn't it? "Oh! no, no.... Really, this war was stupid. England delights in making mischief, and the French are mad to enter into an alliance with the English, when another country was so eager to come to an agreement with them. France and Germany would get on well with each other. What, then, prevents a thoroughly good understanding?" "A mere nothing, sir; a grain of sand.... Alsace-Lorraine, sir." Herr Mayor shrugged his shoulders. He had forgotten Alsace-Lorraine.