Somewhere about midnight I was awakened by the sounds of revelry in a foreign tongue. Peering through the curtains, I saw by the dim light of the turned‐down station lamps two figures in uniform advancing along the platform. One was a very drunken but merry Russian officer, who was being carefully helped along by a sober and amused British subaltern. They suddenly caught sight of the white mass of my mosquito curtains, which swayed in ghostly folds in the wind and looked uncanny in the uncertain light. “What the devil is that?” exclaimed the Englishman. The Russian hiccoughed a reply in words that sounded like a sneeze. The former, gently propping up his companion against the lamp‐post to which he clung lovingly, advanced to my bed. I recognised him by his uniform to be our Railway Station Staff Officer. Peering through the curtains, he asked me who on earth I was and what I was doing there. In a few words I explained myself and my situation. With a soldier’s ready hospitality he said— “My dear fellow, I am so sorry that I was absent. Get up and move your bed into my quarters. I shall be delighted to put you up.” I thanked him, but assured him that I was very comfortably fixed for the night. “But you can have had no dinner. Did you get anything to eat?” he asked. I recounted my successful search for a meal; whereat he laughed and again expressed his regret at his absence, explaining that he had gone to a dinner‐party given by the wife of a Russian colonel on her husband’s name‐day. Meanwhile his companion, still clinging tightly to the lamp‐post, had been regarding with wonder my contrivance for the support of the mosquito curtains, shaking his head, and muttering to himself. The Britisher, informing me that he was the Russian Railway Staff Officer, then spoke to him in his own language, and introduced me to him, mentioning a name that ended in —itch or —sky. I sat up in bed and bowed. But my new acquaintance, still holding to the friendly support of the post, stared solemnly at the network of straps and cords. At last he broke silence. “Ver’ good! Ver’ practical! You English is ver’ practical nation.” Then he hiccoughed sadly, “I am ver’ _drink_!” Thoroughly awakened, I got up, and we adjourned to the British officer’s quarters, where we drank to our better acquaintance in an iced whisky and soda; for the night was distressingly hot.