L'AVENTURE DE WALTER SCHNAFFS.

The hero of this story was with the German army during the last war between Germany and France. He hated guns and cannon and he missed very much his pretty wife and his children. He preferred to get up late and go to bed early and, above all, to eat lots of good things and drink beer. But now that he was [a] soldier, he was forced to pass the night on the ground, well wrapped up in his military cloak; and he wept often, thinking of the debts which he had contracted. If he was killed there would be no one to bring up his little ones. At the beginning he was afraid of the bullets which whistled close to his head, and he passed his entire time in an extreme terror.

When he was in the north of France, he was sent with a few companies to see if there were any French soldiers in the neighborhood. Everything was calm and he was walking along without thinking of the danger, when suddenly a band of guerrillas came out of the woods and fired at the Germans.

Walter Schnaffs knew that he could not run as fast as the Frenchmen, because he was so fat, and, looking around for a way to retreat, he perceived a ditch almost covered with dry brush-wood. He jumped in and fell to the bottom of what was really a deep hole. Soon all the noise of the struggle stopped, and night came on.

The poor fellow did not know what to do. He was horribly frightened, and he began to be very hungry. He still wore his uniform, and he thought to himself: "If I were only a prisoner of war, then, at least, I should not be hungry, and I could pass my time until the end of the war without any apprehension of bullets and sabres."

But new fears came to him: if he should meet any country people, he was sure that they would kill him with their scythes and pickaxes and their shovels; and the guerrillas would shoot him just to have a good time and see him leaning against the wall.

In the midst of these terrible reflections he fell asleep, and when he awoke he saw the sun shining almost above his head. He was so hungry that his stomach pained him, and the thought of the good sausage which he used to eat as a soldier made his mouth water. The idea came to him to attack a rustic who was alone, take away his shovel from him, and dig the ditch still deeper in order to hide himself better; then he felt that he was going mad, and finally he resolved to start for the château in the distance rather than suffer longer.

In the lower windows, which were open, he saw lights, and he smelt the pleasant odor of cooked meat, and without a moment's reflection he opened the window and entered the room. All the servants were dining around the large table, and seeing the German soldier they uttered horrible cries and rushed toward the door at the end of the hall. The chairs were overturned, and in three seconds the room was empty.

Walter did not know what to think; but hunger spoke louder than his other emotions, and he sat down at the table and began to eat and drink. He emptied all the plates and all the bottles, and he could scarcely breathe; slowly his eyes closed in spite of him, his head dropped on the table, and he fell asleep.

Some hours afterwards a great noise was heard; the windows were broken in and fifty men, armed to the teeth, rushed in, seized the German, and bound him hand and foot. He was scarcely awake, but he was glad to be a prisoner, smiled, and kept on saying, "Ja, ja." The colonel took a notebook from his pocket and wrote: "After a terrible combat the Prussians beat a retreat, leaving many wounded and prisoners in our hands."

They ordered Walter to go with them to the prison in the town, some miles from the château, and the colonel was decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honor for his bravery.