th the air of
a master in psychology. The engine is whistling and hissing while
the window curtains flush red with the glow of the setting sun.

A HAPPY MAN

THE passenger train is just starting from Bologoe, the junction on
the Petersburg-Moscow line. In a second-class smoking compartment
five passengers sit dozing, shrouded in the twilight of the carriage.
They had just had a meal, and now, snugly ensconced in their seats,
they are trying to go to sleep. Stillness.

The door opens and in there walks a tall, lanky figure straight as
a poker, with a ginger-coloured hat and a smart overcoat, wonderfully
suggestive of a journalist in Jules Verne or on the comic stage.

The figure stands still in the middle of the compartment for a long
while, breathing heavily, screwing up his eyes and peering at the
seats.

"No, wrong again!" he mutters. "What the deuce! It's positively
revolting! No, the wrong one again!"

One of the passengers stares at the figure and utters a shout of
joy:

"Ivan Alexyevitch! what brings you here? Is it you?"

The poker-like gentleman starts, stares blankly at the passenger,
and recognizing him claps his hands with delight.

"Ha! Pyotr Petrovitch," he says. "How many summers, how many winters!
I didn't know you were in this train."

"How are you getting on?"

"I am all right; the only thing is, my dear fellow, I've lost my
compartment and I simply can't find it. What an idiot I am! I ought
to be thrashed!"

The poker-like gentleman sways a little unsteadily and sniggers.

"Queer things do happen!" he continues. "I stepped out just after
the second bell to get a glass of brandy. I got it, of course. Well,
I thought, since it's a long way to the next station, it would be
as well to have a second glass. While I was thinking about it and
drinking it the third bell rang. . . . I ran like mad and jumped
into the first carriage. I am an idiot! I am the son of a hen!"

"But you seem in very good spirits," observes Pyotr Petrovitch.
"Come and sit down! There's room and a welcome."

"No, no. . . . I'm off to look for my carriage. Good-bye!"

"You'll fall between the carriages in the dark if you don't look
out! Sit down, and when we get to a station you'll find your own
compartment. Sit down!"

Ivan Alexyevitch heaves a sigh and irresolutely sits down facing
Pyotr Petrovitch. He is visibly excited, and fidgets as though he
were sitting on thorns.

"Where are you travelling to?" Pyotr P