Lieut.-Col. Maximovich was the official to whom my application was entrusted. He came in expecting to find me in the place usually taken by casual callers. In one hand he held out my documents, in the other I noticed a printed paper, the like of which I seemed to have seen before. He informed me, courteously enough, that all applications by correspondents must be made through the correspondent’s own Minister of State for Foreign Affairs recommending him to His Excellency the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, who would transmit the recommendation to His Excellency the Viceroy, who might consider favourably such an application for permission to be accredited to one of the Russian armies in the Far East. There was a great deal of circumlocution attached to this course, in which so many Excellencies had to be interested. I begged the Colonel to be kind enough to put that information in writing for me. He complied, using an abbreviated form and omitting various _Vuisokoprevoskhodityelstvo’s_, and other titles. He reached me at once, on concluding, with the order: “You must now leave Port Arthur forthwith.” “Yes,” said I; “where may I go?” He suggested Chifu. I had no more business with Chifu than Russia could have. I suggested Mukden. “No, not Mukden.” “Dalny?” “Not Dalny.” “Harbin?” He shook his head. “Newchwang?” As to that he could not say. Newchwang might be possible. There and then I determined that it should be Newchwang. “_Au revoir_, Colonel,” I said cheerily. “Good-bye,” he answered icily. As I left he handed the printed form to an orderly, giving instructions that it should be forwarded immediately. Next I called upon the Anglo-Russian correspondent, but his flat was forsaken--he had gone into hiding for a few days. The remainder of my stay in Port Arthur was apportioned to getting rid of my responsibilities as to other persons’ property, learning something respecting the present state of the warships in the harbour, the personnel of the new appointments to the Viceroy’s staff, the probable date of their departure north, and arrange for the transmission of further news to me at Newchwang. The programme was carried through in its entirety; I spent the early hours of the evening with some officers in the New Town, and it was long after dark before I directed my steps homeward. I had still one call to make. That was interrupted by the brusque entrance of Tsintsius, with a summons for me to attend at the police-station at once. His manner was different from that he had shown previously. He was abrupt and churlish. There was a third person in his carriage when I stepped into it, and we drove along in silence.