d-jowled ladies are visibly constrained by the force of circumstance
to dine at the same table and hour, et voila tout. There is no pretence
that any more sociable and neighborly motive has brought them together.
Indeed, they each suspect the other of being a German, or a Nihilist,
or, worse still, a Government servant. They therefore sit as far apart
as possible, and smoke cigarettes between and during the courses with
that self-centred absorption which would be rude, if it were not
entirely satisfactory, to the average Briton. The ladies, of course,
have the same easy method of showing a desire for silence and reflection
in a country where nurses carrying infants usually smoke in the streets,
and where a dainty confectioner's assistant places her cigarette between
her lips in order to leave her hands free for the service of her
customers.

The table d'hote of the Hotel de Moscou at Tver was no exception to the
general rule. In Russia, by the way, there are no exceptions to general
rules. The personal habits of the native of Cronstadt differ in no way
from those of the Czar's subject living in Petropavlovsk, eight thousand
miles away.

Around the long table of the host were seated, at respectable intervals,
a dozen or more gentlemen, who gazed stolidly at each other from time to
time, while the host himself smiled broadly upon them all from that end
of the room where the lift and the smell of cooking exercise their
calling--the one to spoil the appetite, the other to pander to it when
spoilt.

Of these dozen gentlemen we have only to deal with one--a man of broad,
high forehead, of colorless eyes, of a mask-like face, who consumed what
was put before him with as little noise as possible. Known in Paris as
"Ce bon Vassili," this traveller. But in Paris one does not always use
the word bon in its English sense of "good."

M. Vassili was evidently desirous of attracting as little attention as
circumstances would allow. He was obviously doing his best to look like
one who travelled in the interest of braid or buttons. Moreover, when
Claude de Chauxville entered the table d'hote room, he concealed
whatever surprise he may have felt behind a cloud of cigarette smoke.
Through the same blue haze he met the Frenchman's eye, a moment later,
without the faintest twinkle of recognition.

These two worthies went through the weird courses provided by a cook
professing a knowledge of French _cuisine_ without taking any
compromi