The most unusual propositions are generally engineered by the Russian refugees. Many of these are spendthrifts who prefer to earn their living in an easy manner, either through gambling or through managing amusement places, restaurants, dancing clubs, theaters, etc. A group of titled Russian refugees headed by a former chamberlain of the late Tsar succeeded in starting a large establishment which provided all imaginable amusements, not barring roulette, and their enterprise was so successful that within two or three months after it started they were able to pay back with substantial profits the money they had borrowed to launch it. After this they became intoxicated with their success and considering their enterprise as a mint, proceeded to spend its nightly earnings as rapidly as they were won. They disposed of their profits at their own gambling tables, they lavishly entertained their friends and guests by consuming indiscriminately their own stocks of wines and food, and naturally within another couple of months they were obliged to close their doors. But many other amusement places flourish still in Pera under the management of Russians, who are most ingenious in this kind of enterprise. A former officer of the Russian army once came to us and asked us to finance a scheme which would have made a second Monte Carlo of Constantinople. As we did not care to enter into this kind of business we lost sight of him for quite a long period. He came back one day, however, and told us that his scheme having fallen through he and his family had been so near starvation that they had just about decided to commit suicide collectively when it occurred to him to commercialize the hobby he had in his days of prosperity, namely, cabinet and furniture making. He had offered his services for this purpose to a new restaurant which had immediately commissioned him. His wife, a former lady in waiting of the Tzarina, had become a cook in this restaurant and their daughter, a child of about fifteen, had had the good luck to find a position as lady's maid with some well-to-do foreigners. Thus the family had been saved from starvation and the former officer is now one of the most successful furniture makers of Constantinople. He had heard that we were enlarging our offices and wanted to figure on the new furniture we needed. Needless to say that he got the order.