ly, clearing his throat. "Do you know the name of Pushkov?"

"Pushkov? H'm! Pushkov.... No, I don't know it!"

"That is my name,..." said the _vis-a-vis,_, overcome with
embarrassment. "Then you don't know it? And yet I have been a professor
at one of the Russian universities for thirty-five years,... a member
of the Academy of Sciences,... have published more than one work...."

The first-class passenger and the _vis-a-vis_ looked at each other and
burst out laughing.

A TRAGIC ACTOR

IT was the benefit night of Fenogenov, the tragic actor. They were
acting "Prince Serebryany." The tragedian himself was playing Vyazemsky;
Limonadov, the stage manager, was playing Morozov; Madame Beobahtov,
Elena. The performance was a grand success. The tragedian accomplished
wonders indeed. When he was carrying off Elena, he held her in one hand
above his head as he dashed across the stage. He shouted, hissed, banged
with his feet, tore his coat across his chest. When he refused to fight
Morozov, he trembled all over as nobody ever trembles in reality, and
gasped loudly. The theatre shook with applause. There were endless
calls. Fenogenov was presented with a silver cigarette-case and a
bouquet tied with long ribbons. The ladies waved their handkerchiefs and
urged their men to applaud, many shed tears.... But the one who was
the most enthusiastic and most excited was Masha, daughter of Sidoretsky
the police captain. She was sitting in the first row of the stalls
beside her papa; she was ecstatic and could not take her eyes off the
stage even between the acts. Her delicate little hands and feet were
quivering, her eyes were full of tears, her cheeks turned paler and
paler. And no wonder--she was at the theatre for the first time in her
life.

"How well they act! how splendidly!" she said to her papa the police
captain, every time the curtain fell. "How good Fenogenov is!"

And if her papa had been capable of reading faces he would have read
on his daughter's pale little countenance a rapture that was
almost anguish. She was overcome by the acting, by the play, by the
surroundings. When the regimental band began playing between the acts,
she closed her eyes, exhausted.

"Papa!" she said to the police captain during the last interval, "go
behind the scenes and ask them all to dinner to-morrow!"

The police captain went behind the scenes, praised them for all their
fine acting, and complimented Madame Beobahtov.

"Your l