riders because the men were not of the same mind with them as to
the route to follow! From our window we laughed fit to kill at such
a mixture of sprawling boots and dancing hoofs. But the troopers
finally got all their horses to barracks, with patience, for the
Emperor's cavalry are the best riders in the world, Feodor
Feodorovitch. And we certainly had a great laugh! - Your health,
Matrena Petrovna."

[*The "Barque" is a restaurant on a boat, among the isles,
near the Gulf of Finland, on a bank of the Neva.]

These last graceful words were addressed to Madame Trebassof, who
shrugged her shoulders at the undesired gallantry of the gay
Councilor. She did not join in the conversation, excepting to
calm the general, who wished to send the whole regiment to the
guard-house, men and horses. And while the roisterers laughed over
the adventure she said to her husband in the advisory voice of the
helpful wife:

"Feodor, you must not attach importance to what that old fool Ivan
tells you. He is the most imaginative man in the capital when he
has had champagne."

"Ivan, you certainly have not had horses served with champagne in
pails," the old boaster, Athanase Georgevitch, protested jealously.
He was an advocate, well-known for his table-feats, who claimed the
hardest drinking reputation of any man in the capital, and he
regretted not to have invented that tale.

"On my word! And the best brands! I had won four thousand