but, as nothing is said of an interpreter, I must suppose that he had been
quietly and painfully taking lessons in this very difficult tongue. Anyhow,
you must picture him, at some spot not specified, addressing a concourse of
enthusiastic Revolutionaries. I propose to give a brief summary of his
speech, from which you will gather that he spoke to them like a father, and
that, while he showed a cordial sympathy with the cause of Russian freedom,
he did not hesitate to deliver himself of some very straight home-truths.

"Friends, Russians, Allies," he began; "I come on behalf of my
fellow-countrymen" (you know his touching way of regarding himself as the
medium of the best intelligence to be found in the British Empire) "to
convey their affectionate sympathy with you in your triumph over the
tyranny of Tsardom. At first we took the natural and hopeful view that your
Revolution, supported by all that was noblest in all ranks of your society,
was the result of bitter dissatisfaction with the conduct of the War, and
with the secret and sinister enemy influences which were at work to ruin
your chances in the common fight against Kaiserism.

"Yet it was immediately followed by wholesale desertions from the
firing-line and a general disintegration of military discipline. It seems,
then, that we were wrong; for otherwise it would be a curious irony that a
movement designed for the better conduct of the War should produce a
complete stagnation on your fighting fronts; or, to look at it from another
point of view, that a Revolution which owed its success to the War, since,
in such a war as this, the Army and the nation are one, should have, for
its immediate consequence, an apparent failure on your part to remember the
purpose for which the War is being fought.

"No doubt many motives were at work, and it was perhaps natural that in the
joy of your new-found freedom you should be tempted to forget the