"Than our host exhibited when General Kissoff informed him
that the telegraphic wires had just been cut between the frontier
and the government of Irkutsk."

"Ah! you are aware of that?"

"I am!"

"As regards myself, it would be difficult to avoid knowing it,
since my last telegram reached Udinsk," observed Alcide Jolivet,
with some satisfaction.

"And mine only as far as Krasnoiarsk," answered Harry Blount,
in a no less satisfied tone.

"Then you know also that orders have been sent to the
troops of Nikolaevsk?"

"I do, sir; and at the same time a telegram was sent to the Cossacks
of the government of Tobolsk to concentrate their forces."

"Nothing can be more true, Mr. Blount; I was equally well acquainted
with these measures, and you may be sure that my dear cousin shall
know of them to-morrow."

"Exactly as the readers of the Daily Telegraph shall know
it also, M. Jolivet."

"Well, when one sees all that is going on. . . ."