Constantinople, Turkey.--My Dear Old “Shriner”--We got out of Russia just in time to keep from being arrested or blown up with a bomb. Dad wanted to go to Moscow, because he saw a picture once of Moscow being destroyed by fire by Napoleon, or somebody, and he wanted to see if they had ever built the town up again, but I felt as though something serious was going to, happen in that country if we didn't look out, and so I persuaded dad to go to Turkey, and the day we started for Constantinople we got the news that the Nihilists had thrown a bomb under the carriage of the Grand Duke Sergius and blew him and the carriage into small pieces not bigger than a slice of summer sausage, and they had to sweep his remains up in a dustpan and bury them in a two-quart fruit jar. Wouldn't that jar you? When dad heard about that you couldn't have kept him in Russia on a bet, and so we let the authorities have all the money we had, giving some to each man who held us up, until we got out of the country, and then we took the first long breath we had taken since we struck the Godforsaken country of the czar. If the bombs hold out I do not think there will be a quorum left in Russia in a year, either czars, dukes or anything except peasants on the verge of starvation and workingmen who have not the heart to work. I wouldn't take the whole of Russia as a gift, and have to dodge bombs night and day. Say, old man, you never dreamed that I knew all about you and dad joining the Masons that time, but I watched you and dad giving each other signs and grips, and whispering passwords into each other's ears, in the grocery, nights, after you had locked up. I thought, at the time, that you and dad were planning a burglary, but when you both went to the lodge one night and stayed till near morning, and dad came home with a red Turkish fez and told ma that you and he had joined the shrine, which was the highest degree in Masonry, and you and he were nobles, and all that rot, I was on to you bigger than a house, and you couldn't fool me when you and dad winked at each other and talked about crossing the hot sands of the desert. Well, dad brought his red fez along, 'cause I think he expected he would meet shriners all over the world, that he could borrow money of. When we struck Constantinople and dad saw that every last one of the Turks wore a red fez, he felt as though he had got among shriners, and he got his fez out of his trunk and he wears it all the time.