Malcolm felt all a decent man's embarrassment.
"Forgive me butting into your affairs, but naturally I'm rather hazed."

"Naturally," laughed the general. "A bottle of kavass, my peach of
Turkistan, and a glass for our comrade."

"Long live the Revolution!" wheezed the waitress mechanically.

"Long may it live, little mother!" responded the general.

When the girl had gone he squared round to his companion.

"I have no shame, Mr. Hay--I'm going to let you pay for your own dinner
because I cannot in these democratic times pauperize you by paying for
you. No, I have no money. My balance in the State bank has been
confiscated to the sacred cause of the people. My estate, a hundred
versts or so from Moscow, confiscated to the sacred cause of the
Revolution, my house in Petrograd is commandeered to the sacred service
of the Soviet."

"But your command?"

The general did not smile now. He laid down his knife and fork and threw
a glance behind him.

"The men began shooting their officers in March, 1917," he said,
lowering his voice. "They executed the divisional staff in May--the
democratic spirit was of slow growth. They spared me because I had
written a book in my youth urging popular government and had been
confined in the fortess of Vilna for my crime. When the army was
disbanded I came to Moscow, and the cab was given to me by a former
groom of mine, one Isaac Mosservitch, who is now a judge of the high
court and dispenses pretty good law, though he cannot sign his own
name."

"Mr. Hay," he went on earnestly, "you did wrong to come to Moscow. Get
back to Kieff and strike down into the Caucasus. You can reach the
American posts outside of Tiflis. You'll never leave Russia. The
Bolsheviks have gone mad--blood-mad, murder-mad. Every foreigner is
suspect. The Americans and the English are being arrested. I can get you
a passport that will carry you to Odessa, and you can reach Batoum, and
Baku from there."

Malcolm leant back in his chair and looked thoughtfully at the other.

"Is it so bad?"

"Bad! Moscow is a mad-house. Listen--do you hear anything?"

Above the hum of conversation Malcolm caught a sound like the cracking
of whips.

"Rifle-firing," said the general calmly. "There's a counter-revolution
in progress. The advanced Anarchists are in revolt against the
Bolsheviks. There is a counter-revolution every morning. We cab-drivers
meet after breakfast each day and decide amongst ourselves which of the