“After I had been about two years in Colonel Mentchikoff’s house he told me my father’s story and the reason why he, the colonel, was so friendly to me. My father, it seems, had been a soldier in the Russian army most of his life, and had attracted attention because of his gallantry and fidelity. He had taken part in many battles in the Caucasus and had risen to the rank of corporal, which was as high as an uneducated man and a Jew could aspire. In a fierce hand-to-hand struggle in one of those battles he had saved the life of Colonel Mentchikoff, who had then, impelled by gratitude, asked him in what way he could recompense him for the great service he had rendered him. My father, blessed be his memory, who was as unassuming and modest as he was brave, answered that he desired no recompense for himself, as he had only done his duty in defending his commander, but that he had an only child, a son, whose mother had died while he was yet an infant, and that he, my father, desired, in case he met his death in the war, that the colonel should see that the boy was cared for and properly educated, and if in future years the intolerant laws should be changed and it would be permitted to Jews to become military officers, that he should endeavor to have him admitted to the military academy and prepared for the martial career. All this the colonel had willingly promised, and thought it but a slight reward for the saver of his life. “Shortly after my father received his death wound at the hand of one of the savage warriors of the Caucasus. He was brought, at his own urgent request, to the house where his little son was living in charge of an old nurse, to pass the few remaining days of his existence; and when he had died he received, in consideration of his exceptional merit, the distinguished honor of a great military funeral. The colonel, had then taken formal charge of me, and ever since I had resided in his home. The colonel assured me that he loved me dearly, for the sake of my father, whose memory he held sacred, and that he would do all in his power to promote my welfare and to assist me to embrace the military career as my father had desired. He was as good as his word. Until my fourteenth year he cared for me in the most liberal and kind-hearted manner, providing equally well for my physical and intellectual needs, and then, since I had reached the age when youths, intending to take up the military career must begin their studies, he procured my admission into the Imperial Military Academy at St. Petersburg. The illiberal laws prohibiting the conferring of commissions on Hebrews had not, it is true, been formally abrogated, but the spirit of tolerance was abroad in the land; it was in the days of the good Czar Alexander II., who had in so many ways alleviated the lot of all the oppressed peoples of his realm, and so my kind protector and guardian met with no difficulties or discouragements in seeking my admission into the academy. On the