One lone and dilapidated carriage, drawn by a bored and weary looking horse, with head framed in a high wooden collar, stood at the curb. A Russian came through the door, and shouted, apparently into the air, a single magic word: “Izvostchik!” A perambulating feather-bed in voluminous folds of blue broadcloth detached itself from the nearest crowd, swept its broadcloth train majestically over the sidewalk, and mounted the box. The carriage rattled away, the linguistically accomplished Russian and all his bags stowed neatly within. I watched this achievement with undisguised admiration and envy, blankly wondering what I should do next. A fellow traveler, a Swedish girl on her way home from Japan to be married to an English officer, joined me. Behind her waddled the stout and pleasing person of the Finnish missionary who with her “many luggages” had shared my compartment from Harbin. We held a consultation. Here we were, all utterly alone at half-past two in the morning, in this great, strange city which talked on and on without even a glance in our direction. Our telegrams to friends were probably traveling in the mail-bags on the same train or coming along on next week’s express. A young Russian officer came gallantly to the rescue. “I telegraphed for a room--you ladies can have that,” he said; and, turning to me: “If you will stay and mind the luggage, we will go uptown and see about it.” The last thing in the world I wanted to do at that moment was to stay and mind the luggage. The station was hot, close, and dirty. Soldiers--weary brown men in worn uniforms, unwashed and unshaven--asleep on their kit-bags or curled up on the floor in their overcoats, lay so thick that you had to pick your way carefully. I was tired of places that were close and dirty. I longed to be out in those strange, wide streets, so full of people with so many things to say that the days were not long enough. Politeness set a seal upon desire. My friends promised to be back in twenty minutes, so I returned to the stuffy waiting-room, and the odd assortment of bags and bundles for which I was to be responsible. There was a clock on the wall, and the minute-hand slowly made its way around the dial. An hour passed--it was half-past three. Still no sign of the Russian gallant. The minute-hand began another journey.