d Paul, slipping the fire-arm into his pocket.

The starosta moved away a pace or two. He was essentially a man of
peace.

Half an hour later it became known in the village that the Moscow doctor
was in the house of one Ivan Krass, where he was prepared to see all
patients who were now suffering from infectious complaints. The door of
this cottage was soon besieged by the sick and the idle, while the
starosta stood in the door-way and kept order.

Within, in the one dwelling-room of the cottage, were assembled as
picturesque and as unsavory a group as the most enthusiastic modern
"slummer" could desire to see.

Paul, standing by the table with two paraffin lamps placed behind him,
saw each suppliant in turn, and all the while he kept up a running
conversation with the more intelligent, some of whom lingered on to talk
and watch.

"Ah, John the son of John," he would say, "what is the matter with you?
It is not often I see you. I thought you were clean and thrifty."

To which John the son of John replied that the winter had been hard and
fuel scarce, that his wife was dead and his children stricken with
influenza.

"But you have had relief; our good friend the starosta--"

"Does what he can," grumbled John, "but he dare not do much. The barins
will not let him. The nobles want all the money for themselves. The
Emperor is living in his palace, where there are fountains of wine. We
pay for that with our taxes. You see my hand--I cannot work; but I must
pay the taxes, or else we shall be turned out into the street."

Paul, while attending to the wounded hand--an old story of an old wound
neglected, and a constitution with all the natural healing power drained
out of it by hunger and want and vodka--Paul, ever watchful, glanced
round and saw sullen, lowering faces, eager eyes, hungry, cruel lips.

"But the winter is over now. You are mistaken about the nobles. They do
what they can. The Emperor pays for the relief that you have had all
these months. It is foolish to talk as you do."

"I only tell the truth," replied the man, wincing as Paul deliberately
cut away the dead flesh. "We know now why it is that we are all so
poor."

"Why?" asked Paul, pouring some lotion over a wad of lint and speaking
indifferently.

"Because the nobles--" began the man, and some one nudged him from
behind, urging him to silence.

"You need not be afraid of me," said Paul. "I tell no tales, and I take
no money."

"Then why do