Labouchere did not think much of the Russians. He used to say that they were like monkeys, eager to copy the manners of civilised Europe, but that the copy they succeeded in producing was a daub and not a picture, because they always exaggerated their originals. When they were polite, they were too polite; when they were copying Frenchmen, they were too much like dancing masters; and when they were copying Englishmen they were too much like grooms. He had an amusing account to give of a visit he once paid to a Russian country house. "Card-playing, eating and drinking--and more especially the latter," he related--"went on all day and nearly all night. I never could understand where my bedroom was, for the excellent reason, as I at length discovered, that I hadn't one. At a late hour I saw several of the guests heaping up in corners cushions which they had taken from sofas, to serve as beds, so I followed their example. When I woke up in the morning I could not see any apparatus to wash in, so I filled a china bowl with water, and, having dried myself with a tablecloth which I found in an adjoining room, I dressed." He {57} gave a charming thumb-nail sketch of a Russian drawing-room, à propos of a visit of Mr. Augustus Lumley to the Russian capital. Mr. Lumley was a famous cotillon leader. "I was at St. Petersburg when Mr. Lumley arrived on a visit. He was solemnly introduced to the Russian leader of cotillons, who is invariably an officer of distinction, as a colleague. It was like the meeting between two famous generals, and reminded me of the pictures of Wellington and Blücher on the field of Waterloo. It took place at a ball, and the Russian, with chivalrous courtesy, offered to surrender to his English colleague the direction of the cotillon." The Emperor of Russia[12] once stood beside Henry Labouchere whilst he was playing at écarté to watch his game. The occasion was a ball given by the Empress to the Emperor on his birthday. Labouchere and his adversary were both at four, and it was Labouchere's deal. "Now," said the Emperor, "let us see whether you can turn up the king." Labouchere dealt, and then held out the turn-up card, observing: "Your orders have been obeyed, sir." The Emperor asked him, as often as a dozen times subsequently, how he had managed it, and never could be persuaded that it was a mere coincidence, and that the young attaché had taken the chance of the card being a king. It was a trifling example of the luck, or its reverse, that seemed to be for ever crossing and recrossing Labouchere's path, in spite of his own belief in nothing but the logical sequence of events.