Romanoff’s room was right across the hall, and he stepped out for a minute, leaving the B---- door open. While he was absent, Mrs. B---- stopped playing suddenly and listened. Then she cried out in terror and ran into the hall. I had heard nothing startling, and wondered what had caused her perturbation. She ran in again presently, crying “Meescha! Meescha!,” or so it sounded to me, and pointed to the corner of her room, where a large sack stood. It was a sack of sugar, and as I approached it, I heard a rustling. I looked in and saw two mice and then held the top of the sack shut so they could not escape into the room. Finally I dragged the sack out into the hall, close to the open door of the officers’ mess-room. It was full of dining officers, and some of them looked out in surprise at seeing me dragging a heavy sack through the hall. I opened the sack and let the mice escape. They ran into the dining-room, but as no one had noticed them it did not matter. So I dragged the sack back to Mrs. B----’s room. About ten o’clock Captain B---- came striding down the hall. I supposed the colonel had held him prisoner a few hours so as not to be too ready to show any regard for my attitude. And being in Asia, the colonel had to “save his face.” Captain B---- wrung my hand, and I pushed him gently through the door to his wife. I went back to my own room, wondering if I had prevented an execution. XIX NEW FRIENDS, PRISONS, AND OTHER THINGS Three British officers came to Chita to observe conditions for their government. Lieutenant-Colonel H---- of the General Staff, Major K---- of the British Indian Army, and Captain P---- who was an expert on railroad conditions and gave his attention to matters pertaining to the Trans-Siberian. This trio made my life a joy, for they were jolly chaps, keen on their work and keen on play when it was time to play, as is the Briton the world over. These gentlemen were much amused at first by my “Americanism,” but in a short time they discovered that my American idioms were provided chiefly for their entertainment and they declined to take my exaggerated slang seriously. And as I spent much time in foretelling what would happen in Siberia, they dubbed me “Old Moore” after the ancient and celebrated prophet in England who publishes the prophetic “Old Moore’s Almanac.” And as we got franker, they asked questions in gentle criticism of American institutions and I in turn told them what was wrong with England and the British Empire. Colonel H---- had come through the United States on his way to Siberia, and was puzzled by some of the characteristics of American journalism, as well as startled by the hospitality that had been accorded to him by new friends in New York, and in the clubs of that city. Being a lover of tennis, a New York tennis club had made his stay in the city a delight. He was still in something of a daze over the way in which the courts and club-house had been turned over to him to use as his own.