, his head swathed in bandages and dressings from the midst
of which one could perceive distinctly only the eyes and, above all, the
mouth.

"How goes it, little friend?"

"How are you?"

"Oh, I! There is nothing the matter. In a week we shall have forgotten
it."

"What a terrible affair," said the reporter, "I certainly believed we
were all dead men."

"No, no. It was nothing. Nitchevo!"

"And poor Thaddeus Tchitchnikoff with his two poor legs broken!"

"Eh! Nitchevo! He has plenty of good solid splints that will make him
two good legs again. Nitchevo! Don't you think anything more about that!
It is nothing. You have come here to dine? A very celebrated house this.
Caracho!" He busied himself to do the honors. One would have said the
restaurant belonged to him. He boasted of its architecture and the
cuisine "a la Francaise."

"Do you know," he inquired confidently, "a finer restaurant room
anywhere in the world?"

In fact, it seemed to Rouletabille as he looked up into the high glass
arch that he was in a railway station decorated for some illustrious
traveler, for there were flowers and plants everywhere. But the visitor
whom the ball awaited was the Russian eater, the ogre who never failed
to come to eat at The Bear. Pointing out the lines of tables shining
with their white cloths and bright silver, Athanase Georgevitch, with
his mouth full, said:

"Ah, my dear little French monsieur, you should see it at supper-time,
with the women, and the jewels, and the music. There is nothing in
France that can give you any idea of it, nothing! The gayety--the
champagne--and the jewels, monsieur, worth millions and millions of
roubles! Our women wear them all--everything they have. They are decked
like sacred shrines! All the family jewels--from the very bottom of the
caskets! it is magnificent, thoroughly Russian--Muscovite! What am
I saying? It is Asiatic. Monsieur, in the evening, at a fete, we are
Asiatic. Let me tell you something on the quiet. You notice that this
enormous dining hall is surrounded by those windowed balconies. Each of
those windows belongs to a separate private room. Well, you see that
window there?--yes, there--that is the room of a grand duke--yes, he's
the one I mean--a very gay grand duke. Do you know, one evening when
there was a great crowd here--families, monsieur, family parties,
high-born families--the window of that particular balcony was thrown
open, and a woman stark naked, as nak