"When he was at Nijni Novgorod Fair," he continued in all seriousness, "Signor Califatti bought a beautiful fur overcoat. He now wants to sell it. Perhaps you would like to buy it." The Jew offered a thousand roubles for the mythical overcoat, provided it conformed to the Irishman's declaration that it was of first-class astrakhan, in four skins; while White and I remained speechless with astonishment, embarrassment, and the desire to grin. In those days the Bolsheviki of Odessa, after months of suppression by the German Military Command, were beginning to raise their heads again. There was much talk of a withdrawal of German and Austrian troops from the Ukraine, to reinforce the French and Italian fronts. The Bolsheviki were ready, if this happened, to rise up and capture the city. The possession of arms by civilians was strictly forbidden, and any man found in the streets with a revolver was liable to be shot offhand by Austrian soldiers or Ukrainian gendarmes. But the Bolsheviki laughed at the many proclamations anent the handing over of firearms. They hid rifles, revolvers, and ammunition in cellars and attics, or buried them in the ground. Many of our neighbours in the working-class quarter were Bolsheviki. Often they scowled at and threatened Vladimir Franzovitch, as he passed them in his uniform of a lieutenant of the Ukrainian artillery; and it was evident that when the Austrians withdrew our room would be rather more dangerous as a home than a powder factory threatened by fire. The consul of Soviet Russia was preparing lists of men willing to serve in the corps of Red Guards that had been planned, and was spending hundreds of thousands of roubles in propaganda. An immediate rising was threatened; whereupon Austrian and Ukrainian military police surrounded the consulate, captured the lists, and arrested and imprisoned the consul and two hundred Bolsheviki who had given their names as prospective Red Guards. Sixty of them were shot. Even that lesson failed to frighten the half-starved men who lurked in the poorer quarters. Often, in the evening, they haunted the streets in small gangs that held up passers-by and stripped them of their pocket-books and watches, and sometimes of their clothes. The ugliest aspect of an ugly situation was that many soldiers of the Austrian forces, particularly the Magyars and the Poles, sympathized with the Bolsheviki, and were ready to join them, exchanging uniform for looted civilian suits if the troops were withdrawn. The sudden realization that Austria was beaten, coupled with hatred of Austrian Imperialism, went to their heads like new wine. They foresaw an era in which the working man and the private soldier would grab whatever they wanted. Bands of Hungarian privates proved their belief in this millennium by sacking the warehouses in the docks under cover of night.