Ivan Strogoff was a Russian nobleman at the University of St. Petersburg. Together with many of his noble colleagues, he imbibed radical theories concerning freedom and the abuses practiced by the imperial government. Added to this, he married a pretty but poor Polish girl, who died in giving birth to a son, Paul. Ivan one day was arrested, secretly tried and condemned to Siberia. He, however, bought his freedom from corrupt public officials, and fled to New York with his son. Then he began a battle with the world in which starvation and misery constantly held the upper hand. Nothing succeeded with him. He could gain no foothold. His nature, naturally honest and bright, became soured, until at times he actually hated even his son, Paul. The latter was a noble specimen of physical humanity, and apparently seemed to thrive on the hardships which both father and son seemed compelled by cruel fate to endure. This continued until Paul was about 10 years old. Then it was that Ivan brought home one night a long envelope, and while Paul slept in their garret in the slums, Ivan, his father, sat long into the night, until the candle burned out in the socket, reading documents with long, gold seals on them. It was a promise from an influential Russian official, toward a restoration of Strogoff’s estates, if the exile should return and swear anew his allegiance to the Czar. Now Strogoff’s vain struggles in the new world had sobered him. Many of the wild dreams of youth had disappeared, and he was ready and quite prepared to accept good fortune again, even if it meant a sacrifice of those poetic dreams that had caused the misfortunes of his earlier days. He had but enough money left to barely get back to St. Petersburg alone, and the great question was: What could be done with Paul? He finally saw the keeper of the lodging, and received every assurance that Paul would be cared for until his father could send for him. So Ivan kissed the sleeping boy, and ere the sun had started on his course, was on the broad Atlantic, his brain busy with teeming projects for the newer and noble future that seemed to spread out before him.