I was this morning buying cigars at a small tobacconist's.

"Well," said the proprietor of the shop to me, "so we are to destroy the Prussians in twenty days." "Really," I said.

"Yes," he replied, "I was this morning at the Mairie; there was a crowd before it complaining that they could not get meat.

A gentleman--a functionary--got upon a stool.

'Citizens and citizenesses,' he said, 'be calm; continue to preserve the admirable attitude which is eliciting the admiration of the world.