ROR IN MAKING

In the spring of 1919 Malcolm Hay came out from the Kursky Voksal
carrying his own well-worn valise. An indifferent cigar was clenched
between his white teeth, and there was a sparkle of amusement in his
grave eyes. He stood seventy inches in his stockings, and an excellent
judge of men who looked him over, noted the set and width of shoulders,
the upward lift of chin, the tanned face and flexibility of body, marked
him down "soldier"--either American or English.

Malcolm looked up and down the deserted street and then caught the eye
of the solitary _intooski_, a thoughtful-looking man with a short,
square beard, looking monstrously stout in his padded green coat, the
livery of the Moscow drosky driver.

The man on the sidewalk smiled and walked across the pavement.

"Little brother," he said in fluent Russian, "would you condescend to
drive me to the Hotel du Bazar Slav?"

The driver who had noted so approvingly the shape of Malcolm's
shoulders did not immediately answer; then:

"British?--I thought you were."

He spoke excellent English, and Malcolm looked up at him bewildered.

"I seem to know your face, too--let me think."

The cab-driver tapped his bearded chin.

"I have it--Hay. I met you four years ago at a dinner party in
Kieff--you are the manager of an oil company or something of the sort."

"Right," said the astonished young man, "but--I don't exactly place
you."

The drosky driver smiled.

"And yet I dined with you," he said. "I sat next the Grand Duchess
Irene--later, when war broke out, I invited you to my headquarters."

"Good God!" Malcolm's jaw dropped. "General Malinkoff!"

"Commanding the 84th Caucasian Division," said the bearded man dryly,
"and now commanding one little horse. If you will get into my excellent
cab I will drive you to a restaurant where we may eat and drink and be
almost merry for--fifty roubles."

Malcolm stepped into the little drosky like a man in a dream. Malinkoff!
He remembered him, a fine figure on a horse, riding through Kieff at
the head of a glittering throng of staff officers. There was a function
at the Grand Hotel to meet the new Commander, a great parade at that
ancient palace in his honour--Malcolm had come in from the oil-fields
partly to meet him at dinner--partly for news of one who had of a sudden
vanished from his life.

The drosky drove furiously through the east end of the town, and the
passenger noted that the driver was ca