The developments of the next hour added momentarily to my mystification. Paul inquired for a certain man, whom we were informed was away. A brief parley ensued, during which I could see that the door of a room leading off was ajar, and behind this door was some one who seemed to be listening to what was said. The door was presently opened and he whom we sought appeared. We had not been long in this house when there came another ring at the door. A girl not yet out of her teens entered. To all appearances she was a factory-girl, or perhaps a servant. She wore a slatternly cotton dress, and a gray shawl over her head. “A message!” I wondered. The girl shook hands with us all, without uttering a word till she sat down. Then as she spoke I was struck with her expression, which was far too keenly intelligent for a girl of her apparent class. Suddenly she got up and left us without a word. The abruptness of her departure aroused my wonder. It was so un-Russian. Five minutes later Pasha started for the front door, nodding to me to follow. I turned to see if Paul was coming, too, but he shook his head. Not a word passed between us as we threaded our way through devious alleys’ turnings and finally stepped into the doorway of a dark and dingy building. We mounted four flights of stairs to what looked to me an unfinished attic, divided by rough partitions into two large storerooms. At one end of this attic was a closet, or what I took for a closet. Pasha went straight to this closet, stopped, gave two quick knocks upon the door, a pause and then another; the door was immediately opened--by the factory-girl who had left us so abruptly a quarter of an hour before. As I stepped through the closet into a broad room she addressed me in exquisite French. Beyond her, in a big, bare room I could see many soldiers and sailors--fifteen or twenty, or more. Small attention was paid to us while I stood in open-mouthed wonder at the scene. The rooms were scantily furnished, but in the corners were towering piles of pamphlets, proclamations, and other forbidden literature. Near the door a great hulking sailor was stuffing his high boot-legs with dozens of proclamations. Another was wrapping scores of brochures about his body, much as I had carried a certain book across the frontier. In the inner room the men were standing in little groups earnestly talking to one another in subdued voices. Again some one knocked on the door and my factory-girl admitted two soldiers, who went straight to a pile of leaflets which proved to be revolutionary songs printed on thin sheets of paper. These fellows stuffed quantities of the leaflets under their trousers, pulled their belts tight, and went out.