tables d'hote that one cannot get a word in edgeways if one
happens only to be a Russian."

This I said in French. The General eyed me doubtfully, for he
did not know whether to be angry or merely to feel surprised
that I should so far forget myself.

"Of course, one always learns SOMETHING EVERYWHERE," said the
Frenchman in a careless, contemptuous sort of tone.

"In Paris, too, I had a dispute with a Pole," I continued,
"and then with a French officer who supported him. After that a
section of the Frenchmen present took my part. They did so as
soon as I told them the story of how once I threatened to spit
into Monsignor's coffee."

"To spit into it?" the General inquired with grave disapproval
in his tone, and a stare, of astonishment, while the Frenchman
looked at me unbelievingly.

"Just so," I replied. "You must know that, on one occasion,
when, for two days, I had felt certain that at any moment I
might have to depart for Rome on business, I repaired to the
Embassy of the Holy See in Paris, to have my passport visaed.
There I encountered a sacristan of about fifty, and a man dry
and cold of mien. After listening politely, but with great
reserve, to my account of myself, this sacristan asked me to
wait a little. I was in a great hurry to depart, but of course I
sat down, pulled out a copy of L'Opinion Nationale, and fell to
reading an extraordinary piece of invective against Russia which