The Jew had been caught in the act of picking the pockets of a soldier. Furthermore it was his third offence. The first man who spoke had tried to impress the Jew with the enormity of the crime of robbing a man who was on his way to defend his country. He had said, “Don’t you realize that a man going out to fight carries nothing with him except what he actually needs, whether it be money or anything else, and that it is worse to rob a soldier on this account than an ordinary civilian, with a home, and all his treasures about him?” The second man had talked of the defence of the country; the soldiers were going to fight so that when the fighting ended there would be enough for every one and no need for stealing. The third had tried to obtain a promise that the man would not again steal from soldiers. He had been successful, and, “now the Jew is free,” said Larkin. “But it was his third offense,” I said. “I should think they would punish him severely.” “Larkin” gave me a pitying glance. “You don’t understand the Russians,” he said simply. “They are kind and in their own new born freedom they want every one to be free.” At last our train arrived and we got on. To Smolensk and then to Moscow, I thought. But it was not so simple as that. Our train was going to Moghilev direct, so we had to get off again at Polotsk at nine in the evening, where we found that we were half an hour too late to catch the train for Smolensk. “Larkin” hunted around for a sleeping place for us when we learned that we would have to stay overnight in the town, and finally won the favor of the Commissar, who took us to what he called the “Trainmen’s Hotel,” a large building near the station. In the room into which we were ushered there were about twenty beds, the linen on which was far from clean. Two of the beds in one corner of the room were assigned to us and we lay down fully dressed. After what seemed a few minutes I was awakened by a vigorous kick, and found a huge Russian standing over me, brandishing his arms and speaking harshly and menacingly at me. I hurriedly shook “Larkin” out of his profound slumber, and at the end of a brief but spirited discussion between the two in Russian, he informed me that the man had been working all night in the railroad shop and had come in to sleep. He resented finding his bed occupied. I suspected “Larkin” of enjoying the joke on me, as I clambered out and shivered in the cold, but his enjoyment was brief, for he was almost immediately ordered out by another man who entered and claimed his bed. The two of us wandered out forlornly into the cold foggy morning and went back to the station. The Commissar there made us comfortable in his office until daylight, when we went down the track to a water tank and had a “hobo wash” after which we ate our breakfast—one egg each, black bread and tea, in the Soviet restaurant in the station.