sticulating frantically. We rushed at the gate, and in our eagerness
to be on the other side fought and wrestled with each other for first
place. The upper bars broke away in our hands, bricks came off the top
of the adjoining walls, and it was fully five minutes before we were
in the road, breathless, with torn clothes, and I, personally, with a
sprained wrist.

We now felt we were in for a bad time next day, and so, to revive our
drooping spirits, repaired to the house of one of the Russians. Here
vodka, caviare, salmon-back, sardines, Bologna sausage and other
little dainties common to the _zacousca_ furnished us with a most
_recherche_ supper. We ate everything and drank a good deal. By this
time we were again in the wildest spirits and fit for anything. Our
tall American friend was still somewhat unbent, and being of an
inquiring turn of mind was examining the trap-door through which the
dinner is handed by the cook from the pantry into the dining-room. No
sooner was his head well through than he was pounced on by the two
Caledonians, who, seizing him by the legs below the knee, shot his six
feet odd through the trap-door as if they had been tossing the caber.
A terrific crash of crockery told its own tale; the Russian's best
dinner service was no more. Rising from the fragments the victim
declared it to be his opinion that all, with the exception of
himself, were inebriated and unfit for the society of respectable
citizens, after which delivery he withdrew to his own quarters.

Next we heard female shrieks and screams, accompanied by a heavy
tramping of feet down the stairs, and two of our joyous band appeared,
bearing in triumph by her head and her heels, the struggling form of
our host's Chinese housekeeper, clad in nothing but her night
garments. She was laid tenderly on the dining-room table and comforted
with some _Veuve Clicquot_ champagne, for the poor creature had been
somewhat upset by being pounced on when asleep in bed and hauled off
with so little ceremony and preparation into the publicity of a
well-lighted room full of masculine visitors.

Shortly after daylight the company separated with many expressions of
mutual esteem. On my way to bed I thought our American chum should be
interviewed and an explanation made that no offence was intended by
the recent treatment of him. He was in bed and sleeping heavily, so I
was obliged to wake him in order to fulfil my mission of peace. To say
that he receive