Arthur Hughes welcomed us, and led us directly to a tempting supper--hot soup and a cold bird. “You’ll forgive my sending a goods-car for you, gentlemen,” he began, almost before we got into the house; “but the mother of one of the men fell ill and we had to send her to a hospital on another line. I knew you would rather ride in the goods-car, so I sent her off in the regular car.” It was nearing four o’clock when Hughes showed me my room. As he said good night he lingered at the threshold as if anxious to say something. “What is it?” I asked. “Say, old man, I hate like the deuce to say it--you are my guest and all that, you know--but we are in bad times now. You won’t mind putting your revolver within easy reach, will you?” I laughed and assured him I was quite accustomed to that in Russia. But Hughes was obviously chagrined that he had to make the request. “The house is guarded,” he added, “and everything will probably be all right, but we have to be prepared for anything, you know. Good night.” Mr. Medhurst and I got up late next morning, and as we lingered over a delicious English breakfast, eating slice after slice of toast and marmalade, and drinking far more tea than usual, because it was English breakfast tea, which is a rarity in Russia, he told me the romance of Yusofka. Fifty years ago Russia was almost completely given over to peasant life, the simple wants of the people being supplied by home industries, which are still maintained. Foreign prospectors were the first to realize the vast possibilities of Russia’s natural resources and to begin to prove them. The pioneer among these foreigners was one John Hughes, a Welshman, who discovered in the government of Yekaterinoslaff, near the Sea of Azov, rich deposits of iron and coal. Hughes was the hard-headed son of a blacksmith who stubbornly fought his way upward until he had become a master shipbuilder. He knew all about iron, and much about steel. He knew, too, that in an undeveloped country like Russia, it would be impracticable to utilize to advantage on any large scale the richest iron deposits, if coal had to be transported. After a good deal of searching he found both minerals in juxtaposition in south Russia. Coal-mining was then so new a thing to Russia that there was no coal-mining caste. It had to be created. John Hughes sent to Wales for a number of tried Welsh miners, who came out with their families and set up a British industrial community. The idea of Hughes was to make his British men foremen, as soon as possible, in order to establish an industrial class among Russian workmen.