So they said at least, and as they were from almost every part of the civilized world, they ought to have known. There were English people, swells, peers and peeresses, bankers and bankeresses, a neat little legal set,--Sir Nisey and Lady Prious, Mr. Tocsin, Q.C., Mr. Serjeant Stentor, and some of the junior members of the bar,--a select assortment of the Stock-Exchange, and some eligible young men from the West-end government offices. There were joyous Russians, whose names all ended in "vitch" and "gorod," and were otherwise utterly unpronounceable, who spoke all European languages with equal fluency and facility, and who put down rouleaux of Napoleons on the roulette-table where other people staked thalers or florins. There were a few Frenchmen and French ladies; here was an Austrian gross-herzog or grand-duke, there some Prussian cavalry subalterns who could not play at the table because they had spent the half-crown of their daily allowance in roast veal, Bairisch beer, and a horrible compound called "grogs an rhum," which they drank at night, "after," as they said to themselves, "the English fashion." It had been hotter than ever during the day, but the day was happily past and over, and the moon was streaming on the broad gravelled Platz in front of the Conversationshaus, and the band, stationed in the little oil-lamp-illumined kiosk, were rattling away at Strauss's waltzes and Labitskey's galops. The gamblers were already thronging the _roulette_ and _trente-et-quarante_ tables; and of the non-gamblers all such as had ladies with them were promenading and listening to the music, while the others were seated, drinking and smoking. It was a splendid evening; the diners at the late _tables-d'hôte_ were wending their way from their hotels to the promenade; the consumers of the German _mittagsessen_, were listening to the band in delicious anticipation of the _reh-braten_ and the _haring-salad_ and the _bok-bier_, or the Ahrbleichart, at which another half-hour would see them hard at work; the clamouring for coffee was incessant, and the head-waiter, Joseph, who was so like Bouffé, was almost driven out of his wits by the Babel of voices. They chattered, those tall occupants of the little wooden round-tables--how they chattered! They turned round and stared at the promenaders, and made their comments on them after they had passed. They had something to say, some remark, either complimentary or disparaging, to make upon all the ladies. But there was only one man who seemed to attract any special attention, and that was the Russian Prince Tchernigow.