igant. I knew Bebel and Jaures and the men before
them. I lived in Germany many years, in France, in England, anywhere,
everywhere. I first came to New York from Siberia. I was broke. The
Civil War was on. There were agents of Lee and Jeff Davis in New York
seeking sailors. They offered lots of money,--thousands,--and I went
along, smuggled into the South by an underground road."

Stroganoff threw away the shreds of tobacco, now a mere fiery wafer
that threatened his mouth's seine of silver strands. He put his hand
in his Prince Albert and scratched his stomach.

"Mr. Stroganoff," I queried, with a moral tide rising, "how could
you join in a life-and-death issue like that of the Civil War, and
kill men without hatred of their cause in your heart?"

He patted my shoulder.

"My dear young American," he replied, "you join anything, even a
sheriff's posse, into which you are dragged, and have a bullet from
the other side slit your ear, or a round shot bang against your deck,
and you'll soon convince yourself that you are in the right, or,
anyway, that your adversary is a scoundrel. I handled a gun on the
Merrimac in Hampton Roads when that cheese-box of a Monitor rattled
her solid shot on our slippery sides. I was two years in that damned
un-Civil War, and as I started on the Southern side, I stayed on
it. I left the navy to go with John Mosby and burn houses. When
the war was over, and I recovered from my wound, I went to 'Frisco
and crossed to Siberia, and thus back to Moscow. No, I never was an
exile in Siberia or in a Russian prison. I knew and worked for the
leaders of the old Nihilists. I was with them till I knew them, and
then I saw they were selfish and fakers. I knew the socialist chiefs
in France and Germany, the fathers of the present movement there. I
was red-hot for the cause until I knew them, and I quit."

He sat meditatively for a few moments.

"I'm all but eighty years old," the raider of the '60's continued
sorrowfully. "I work now for Chinese, preparing their mail, their
custom-house papers, and orders. I scrape along like a watch-dog in a
sausage factory, getting sufficient to eat, but fearful all the time
that the job will kill me. Most of the time I live a few kilometers
from Papeete, toward Fa'a, and come in to town about steamer-time. I
sleep in the chicken-coop or anywhere. I make about forty francs a
month." He stamped upon the grass. "I take it you are a journalist,
and, do you know, what