s well. He is useful to everybody."

Decidedly Onoto did not understand this country, where the worst enemies
supped together.

Rouletabille had been monopolized at once by Prince Galitch, who took
him into a corner and said:

"What are you doing here?"

"Do I inconvenience you?" asked the boy.

The other assumed the amused smile of the great lord.

"While there is still time," he said, "believe me, you ought to start,
to quit this country. Haven't you had sufficient notice?"

"Yes," replied the reporter. "And you can dispense with any further
notice from this time on."

He turned his back.

"Why, it is the little Frenchman from the Trebassof villa," commenced
the falsetto voice of Gounsovski as he pushed a seat towards the young
man and begged him to sit between him and Athanase Georgevitch, who was
already busy with the hors-d'oeuvres.

"How do you do, monsieur?" said the beautiful, grave voice of Annouchka.

Rouletabille saluted.

"I see that I am in a country of acquaintances," he said, without
appearing disturbed.

He addressed a lively compliment to Annouchka, who threw him a kiss.

"Rouletabille!" cried la belle Onoto. "Why, then, he is the little
fellow who solved the mystery of the Yellow Room."

"Himself."

"What are you doing here?"

"He came to save the life of General Trebassof," sniggered Gounsovski.
"He is certainly a brave little young man."

"The police know everything," said Rouletabille coldly. And he asked for
champagne, which he never drank.

The champagne commenced its work. While Thaddeus and the officers
told each other stories of Bakou or paid compliments to the women,
Gounsovski, who was through with raillery, leaned toward Rouletabille
and gave that young man fatherly counsel with great unction.

"You have undertaken, young man, a noble task and one all the more
difficult because General Trebassof is condemned not only by his enemies
but still more by the ignorance of Koupriane. Understand me thoroughly:
Koupriane is my friend and a man whom I esteem very highly. He is good,
brave as a warrior, but I wouldn't give a kopeck for his police. He has
mixed in our affairs lately by creating his own secret police, but
I don't wish to meddle with that. It amuses us. It's the new style,
anyway; everybody wants his secret police nowadays. And yourself, young
man, what, after all, are you doing here? Reporting? No. Police work?
That is our business and your business. I wish you