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 among the people at the château. They talked much louder, and more continuously than usual. Each morning when Laporte came with the mail there was a great scramble for the Paris papers. No matter how quiet or peaceful it might have been before the mail came, there was always pandemonium after that. Something was turning the château upside down. Dog that he was, Pierre understood this.

The strange excitement that the papers always brought would cause the men to clench their fists and grow red in the face and cry "Boche," or "La Guerre," while the women would weep and look miserable.

From all this, Pierre concluded in his dim dog way, that "Boche" was somebody or something very bad, and that La Guerre was also very bad.