Pernik is the junction of several railway lines, trains coming from two separate watering-places connect here with trains from Prague, and set free the travellers who have tried the virtue of the various baths. Ladies with faded faces, and bouquets of faded flowers, were wandering about looking for hand-bags gone astray or for waiting-maids, men were busily munching, glad to forget over their first sandwich, the dietetic limitations to which they had been forced to submit while undergoing a course of the baths; locomotives were hissing and puffing like monsters out of breath after a race; the sunshine glittered on the flat roofs of the railway-carriages, the whole atmosphere reeked with coal-dust, and hot iron; there was the usual bustle of hand-cars piled with luggage pushed along the rails, of the shifting of cars on the tracks, and of vendors of fresh water and Pernik beer, with newspaper boys loudly extolling their various wares. Escorted by the obsequious conductor, and followed by the servants, the three conservatives were making their way through the hurly-burly when they nearly ran against a young man, who, with his hands in the pockets of his rough coat, was striding through the crowd, never turning to the right or the left, in a line as straight as that of the railway between St. Petersburg and Moscow. "Pistasch!" exclaimed Oswald. "Ah, I thought I should meet you somewhere." All began to talk at once, when suddenly Pistasch turned, and said, "Good-day!" to Conte Capriani, who was coming towards him with extended hand, and an air of great cordiality. Oswald and Truyn held themselves very erect, looked straight before them, and, passing Pistasch and Capriani, entered their coupe. "I do not understand Kamenz," said Truyn, after they had installed themselves comfortably, and Georges had called from the window for a glass of Pernik beer. Oswald, his elbows propped on the frame of his window, was taking a prolonged observation of the interview between Capriani and Pistasch Kamenz. The third bell rang--the speculator and the nobleman shook hands and separated; then Pistasch approached the coupe where sat the three conservatives, and asked, "Any room in there for me?" "Room enough, but we're not sure that we ought to let you come with us, you renegade!" said Oswald, unlatching the coupe door. "Are you too going to Prague for the election?" "No," said Pistach lazily, "not if I know it, in this heat. I am going to the races--but I shall vote." "Such indifference, nowadays, is culpable," said Truyn gravely. "This is a serious time." "Bah! it is all one to me, who goes to the Reichsrath;--moreover, whoever he may be, he exists principally for the benefit of the newspapers," replied Pistasch apathetically. Only a few years previously, Truyn himself had defined the Reichsrath, as a 'circus for political acrobats'--but his political views were now daily gaining in consistency.