I make these remarks in all the spirit of recent suffering, for I have paid away two hundred pounds since yesterday morning, of which I was not conscious that I owed fifty. And, besides, I have gone through more actual fighting--in the way of bad language, I mean--than double the money would repay me for. In these wordy combats, I feel I always come off worst; for as my knowledge of the language is limited, I 'm like the sailor that for want of ammunition crammed in whatever he could lay hands on into his gun, and fired off his bag of doubloons against the enemy instead of round shot. Mrs. D., too, whom the sounds of conflict always "summon to the field," does not improve matters; for if her vocabulary be limited, it is strong, and even the most roguish shopkeeper does not like to be called a thief and a highwayman! These diversions in our parts of speech have cost me dearly, for I have had to compromise about six cases of "defamation," and two of threatened assault and battery, though these last went no further than demonstrations on Mrs. D.'s part, which, however, were quite sufficient to terrify our grocer, who is a colonel in the National Guard, and a gigantic hairdresser, whose beard is the glory of a "_Sapeur_ company." I have discovered, besides, that I have done something, but what it is--in contravention to the laws--I do not know, and for which I am fined eighty-two francs five centimes, plus twenty-seven for contumacy; and I have paid it now, lest it should grow into more by to-morrow, for so the Brigadier has just hinted to me; for that formidable functionary--with tags that would do credit to a general--is just come to "invite me," as he calls it, to the Prefecture. As these invitations are like royal ones, I must break off now abruptly.