This was a climax of approbation which amazed, and by power of contrast puzzled the warmest asserter of national virtue. "Surely you cannot mean that!" I exclaimed. But romantic as he was, he nodded. "Now, as you charge me with distrust of England, and I may have said some ungracious things," he spoke with a smile almost as bright as Dariel's, "show your forgiveness, my dear friend, by coming with me into my daughter's room. We are beginning to put up our little possessions, for the journey to a rougher place. How many thousand times shall we regret the halcyon days in this quiet little vale! But come and have a cup of coffee." "I am not fit to go into a lady's room. I have got about a pint of water in either boot. They are warranted waterproof, and so they won't let it get out again." "We'll soon put that to rights. You should wear arabas. Come into this passage, and Stepan will see to it, and bring you a pair of my sandals. I will be with you again in a minute." While the faithful henchman was pulling off my boots, which was no small tug for even his great arms, his mind was evidently in a condition of still more strenuous exertion. She--if the higher portion of our composition lays claim to the higher half of gender--was struggling and rolling and flopping about (being over-bulky for lighter process) in quest of some fugitive English word, earnestly courted, but wickedly coy. "Milord, put on more smoke, more smoke. Yes, yes, more smoke, else be too late. Me good friend to milord now. Wicked mens come every day. But milord smoke, smoke, smoke." He puffed with his lips and panted, as if to impress me with the need for a vast fumigation. "I want a pipe sadly, my friend," I replied; "but how can I have it in a lady's room?" The Lesghian stared at me, and stroked his beard, and shook his head angrily, as if he had found it empty. "Stepan fool. No say, no say," he exclaimed as he made off to fetch the slippers; but I am afraid that I heard him mutter, as he turned the corner, "Inglese, dam languidge; dam languidge, Inglese!" In a minute, however, he returned, with a broad smile lighting up all his battered countenance, as if he had found what he wanted in the sandals. "Me know now. Stepan big fool. Milord put on shteam, shteam, shteam! Go ahead! Who's afeard? Won't go home till mornin'? The gal I left behind me. Nancy is my darlin'! Milord know now." "I am blest if I do," I endeavoured to reply; but he would have no more quenching. In the triumph of philology his dignity was lost; and I saw that he must have spent at least a day in London. "Is the Caucasus come to this?" I asked, and was glad to see my host return. Stepan stood up, and shut his mouth in the curtain of his beard, like a casement closed under the ivy, and looked at me, as if there had never been less than a mile of moral distance between us. In the name of the Lord, where does sham end? But I had to do a little on my own account.