very day, and many a marvellous incident happening.
It is in circumstances like this that we involuntarily complain that so
few of our countrymen take notes.

"Would you care to put some rum in your tea?" I said to my companion. "I
have some white rum with me--from Tiflis; and the weather is cold now."

"No, thank you, sir; I don't drink."

"Really?"

"Just so. I have sworn off drinking. Once, you know, when I was a
sub-lieutenant, some of us had a drop too much. That very night there
was an alarm, and out we went to the front, half seas over! We did catch
it, I can tell you, when Aleksei Petrovich came to hear about us!
Heaven save us, what a rage he was in! He was within an ace of having us
court-martialled. That's just how things happen! You might easily spend
a whole year without seeing a soul; but just go and have a drop and
you're a lost man!"

On hearing this I almost lost hope.

"Take the Circassians, now," he continued; "once let them drink their
fill of buza [6] at a wedding or a funeral, and out will come their
knives. On one occasion I had some difficulty in getting away with a
whole skin, and yet it was at the house of a 'friendly' [7] prince,
where I was a guest, that the affair happened."

"How was that?" I asked.

"Here, I'll tell you."...

He filled his pipe, drew in the smoke, and began his story.

CHAPTER II

"YOU see, sir," said the staff-captain, "I was quartered, at the time,
with a company in a fortress beyond the Terek--getting on for five years
ago now. One autumn day, a transport arrived with provisions, in charge
of an officer, a young man of about twenty-five. He reported himself to
me in full uniform, and announced that he had been ordered to remain in
the fortress with me. He was so very elegant, his complexion so nice and
white, his uniform so brand new, that I immediately guessed that he had
not been long with our army in the Caucasus.

"'I suppose you have been transferred from Russia?' I asked.

"'Exactly, captain,' he answered.

"I took him by the hand and said:

"'I'm delighted to see you--delighted! It will be a bit dull for you...
but there, we will live together like a couple of friends. But, please,
call me simply "Maksim Maksimych"; and, tell me, what is this full
uniform for? Just wear your forage-cap whenever you come to me!'

"Quarters were assigned to him and he settled down in the fortress."

"What was his name?" I asked Maksim Maksimych.

"His n