he door
opened, and two or three men pushed their way into the already
overcrowded room.

"Come in, come in!" cried the orator; "the more the better. You are all
welcome. All we require, then, little fathers, is organization. There
are nine hundred souls in Osterno; are you going to bow down before one
man? All men are equal--moujik and barin, krestyanin and prince. Why do
you not go up to the castle that frowns down upon the village, and tell
the man there that you are starving, that he must feed you, that you are
not going to work from dawn till eve while he sits on his velvet couch
and smokes his gold-tipped cigarettes. Why do you not go and tell him
that you are not going to starve and die while he eats caviare and
peaches from gold plates and dishes?"

A resounding bang of the fist finished this fine oration, and again the
questions were unanswered.

"They are all the same, these aristocrats," the man thundered on. "Your
prince is as the others, I make no doubt. Indeed, I know; for I have
been told by our good friend Abramitch here. A clever man our friend
Abramitch, and when you get your liberty--when you get your Mir--you
must keep him in mind. Your prince, then--this Howard Alexis--treats you
like the dirt beneath his feet. Is it not so? He will not listen to your
cry of hunger. He will not give you a few crumbs of food from his gold
dishes. He will not give you a few kopecks of the millions of rubles
that he possesses. And where did he get those rubles? Ah! where did he
get them--eh? Tell me that!"

Again the interrogative unwashed fist. As the orator's wild and frenzied
eye travelled round the room it lighted on a form near the door--a man
standing a head and shoulders above any one in the room, a man enveloped
in an old brown coat, with a woollen shawl round his throat, hiding half
his face.

"Who is that?" cried the orator, with an unsteady, pointing finger. "He
is no moujik. Is that a tchinovnik, little fathers? Has he come here to
our meeting to spy upon us?"

"You may ask them who I am," replied the giant. "They know; they will
tell you. It is not the first time that I tell them they are fools. I
tell them again now. They are fools and worse to listen to such windbags
as you."

"Who is it?" cried the paid agitator. "Who is this man?"

His eyes were red with anger and with vodka; his voice was unsteady. His
outstretched hand shook.

"It is the Moscow doctor," said a man beside him--"the Moscow