"Horrible," Petroff said; "but it is just as well not to talk about it in the streets. Come along, we will take you to our place; we were just thinking of going back." A quarter of an hour's walking took them to the students' room, which was, like the last, at the top of the house. A lamp was lighted, the samovar placed on the table, and a little charcoal fire lit under it. A glass of vodka was handed round to pass the time until the water was boiling, pipes were brought out from the cupboard and filled, for cigars, which are cheap and good, are generally smoked in the streets in Russia by the middle and upper classes, pipes being only used there by Isvostchiks, labourers, and Englishmen. The conversation naturally for a time turned upon the explosion in the Winter Palace, the Russians expressing an indignation fully equal to that of Godfrey. Then they talked of England, both regretting that they were unable to speak the language. "I would give much to be able to read Shakespeare," Petroff said. "I have heard his works spoken of in such high terms by some of our friends who have studied your language, and I have heard, too, from them of your Dickens. They tell me it is like reading of another world--a world in which there are no officials, and no police, and no soldiers. That must be very near a paradise." "We have some soldiers," Godfrey laughed, "but one does not see much of them. About half of those we have at home are in two military camps, one in England and one in Ireland. There are the Guards in London, but the population is so large that you might go a week without seeing one, while in very few of the provincial towns are there any garrisons at all. There are police, and plenty of them, but as their business is only to prevent crime, they naturally don't play a prominent part in novels giving a picture of everyday life. As to officials, beyond rate-collectors we don't see anything of them, though there are magistrates, and government clerks, and custom officers, and that sort of thing, but they certainly don't play any prominent part in our lives." So they chatted for an hour, when at short intervals two other men came in. One was a tall handsome fellow who was introduced by Petroff as the son of Baron Kinkoff, the other was a young advocate of Moscow on a visit to St. Petersburg. Both, Godfrey observed, had knocked in a somewhat peculiar manner at the door, which opened, as he had noticed when they came in, only by a key. Akim observed a slight expression of surprise in Godfrey's face at the second knock, and said laughing: "Our remittances have not come to hand of late, Godfrey, and some of our creditors are getting troublesome, so we have established a signal by which we know our friends, while inconvenient visitors can knock as long as they like, and then go away thinking we are out."