let me have a little flag to send to the boys at home! I found out
to-day that a policeman comes every day to see what we have been
doing, what hours we keep, etc. In fact every movement is watched,
and one day when we returned to the hotel, we found that all our
possessions had been searched, and the police had even left their old
cigar stumps among our things! The more you see of Russia, the more
deeply you fall in love with Uncle Sam!

Several days ago Mrs. Heath gave us a tennis-tea and we had a jolly
time. The tea was served under the trees from a steaming samovar,
around which gathered representatives of many nations. There were many
unpronounceable gentlemen, and one real English Lord, who considered
Americans, "frightfully amusing."

I thought I had forgotten how to play tennis but I hadn't. That
undercut that Jack taught us won me a reputation.

It is only when I stop to think, that I realize how far I am from
home! When I wonder where you all are this minute, and what you are
doing, I feel as if I were on a visit to the planet Mars, and had no
communication whatever with the world.

Think of me, Mate, in Siberia, eating fish with a spoon, and drinking
coffee from a glass! Verily, when old Sister Fate found she could not
down me, she must have decided to play pranks with me!

My box of new clothes arrived just before I started, and I have had
use for everything. When I get on the white coat suit and the white
hat, I feel like a dream.