At night we were told that the peasants of Graufthal had found a gun stuck fast in the valley; and two hours later, whilst we were supping, our neighbor Katel came in pale as death, crying, "The Prussians are at your door!" Then I went out. Ten or fifteen Uhlans were standing there smoking their short wooden pipes, and watering their horses at the mill-stream. Imagine my surprise, especially when one of these Uhlans began to greet me in bad Prussian-German: "Oho! good-evening, Monsieur le Maire! I hope you have been pretty well, Monsieur le Maire, since I last had not the pleasure of seeing you?" He was the officer of the troop. My wife, and Gredel, too, were looking from the door. As I made no answer, he said, "And Mademoiselle Gredel! here you are, as fresh and as happy as ever. I suppose you still sing morning and evening, while you are washing up?" Then Gredel, who has good eyes, cried, "It is that great knave who came to take views in our country last year with his little box on four long legs!" And, even in the dusk, I could recognize one of those German photographers who had been travelling about the mountains a few months before, taking the likenesses of all our village folks. This man's name was Otto Krell; he was tall, pale, and thin, his nose was like a razor back, and he had a way of winking with his left eye while paying you compliments. Ah! the scoundrel! it was he, indeed, and now he was an Uhlan officer: when Gredel had spoken, I recognized him perfectly. "Exactly so, Mademoiselle Gredel," said he, from his tall horse. "It is I myself. You would have made a good gendarme; you would have known a rogue from an honest man in a moment." He burst out laughing, and Gredel said, "Speak in a language I can understand; I cannot make out your patois." "But you understand very well the patois of Monsieur Jean Baptiste Werner," answered this gallows-bird, making a grimace. "How is good Monsieur Jean Baptiste? Is he in as good spirits as ever? Have you still got your little likeness of him, you know, close to your heart--that young gentleman, I mean, that I had to take three times, because he never came out handsome enough?" Then Gredel, ashamed, ran into the house, and my wife took refuge in her room. Then he said to me, "I am glad to see you, Monsieur le Maire, in such excellent health. I came to you, first of all, to wish you good-morning; but then, I must acknowledge, my visit has another object." And as I still answered nothing, being too full of indignation, he asked me: "Have you still got those nice Swiss cows? splendid animals? and the twenty-five sheep you had last year?" I understood in a moment what he was driving at, and I cried: "We have nothing at all; there is nothing in this village; we are all ruined; we cannot furnish you a single thing."