We now felt we were in for a bad time next day, and so, to revive our drooping spirits, repaired to the house of one of the Russians. Here vodka, caviare, salmon-back, sardines, Bologna sausage and other little dainties common to the _zacousca_ furnished us with a most _recherche_ supper. We ate everything and drank a good deal. By this time we were again in the wildest spirits and fit for anything. Our tall American friend was still somewhat unbent, and being of an inquiring turn of mind was examining the trap-door through which the dinner is handed by the cook from the pantry into the dining-room. No sooner was his head well through than he was pounced on by the two Caledonians, who, seizing him by the legs below the knee, shot his six feet odd through the trap-door as if they had been tossing the caber. A terrific crash of crockery told its own tale; the Russian's best dinner service was no more. Rising from the fragments the victim declared it to be his opinion that all, with the exception of himself, were inebriated and unfit for the society of respectable citizens, after which delivery he withdrew to his own quarters. Next we heard female shrieks and screams, accompanied by a heavy tramping of feet down the stairs, and two of our joyous band appeared, bearing in triumph by her head and her heels, the struggling form of our host's Chinese housekeeper, clad in nothing but her night garments. She was laid tenderly on the dining-room table and comforted with some _Veuve Clicquot_ champagne, for the poor creature had been somewhat upset by being pounced on when asleep in bed and hauled off with so little ceremony and preparation into the publicity of a well-lighted room full of masculine visitors.