“_Haracho_,” comes the answer. We all sit down. If any purchasers drift into the shop, they can wait until we get through our visit, or they can go down the line. For wherever the Eagles are planted, the Russian joyfully drops his business to entertain a friend. At the call of “tea” the shovel goes into the ditch, the ledger onto the shelf, the pen into the potato. If “_chai_” interferes with business, cut out business. Nor does it matter in the least that we have just had breakfast; by the rule of etiquette we must be entertained. “Tea” consists first in a ceremoniously clinked toast drowned in vodka. Then appears the samovar in charge of the woman of the house, the glasses, and the sugar. Next follow the cigarettes. The talk is animated, for its local history absorbs each little world. The fact comes out that the cousin of Michaeloff has bought a new pair of horses for a hundred roubles. The price, the quality of the animals and of the man, all go into the crucible. Kiahta beer arrives as the conversation turns to the death of one Ivan Vladimiraef, which it is agreed was not unnatural, since he had reached the age of ninety-odd years. Still the provisions come. The good wife brings in a heaping plate of lard-impregnated Hamburger steaks, called “cotlet,” which Alexsimevich attacks as if his last meal were half a day instead of half an hour distant. Other bottles accumulate to help out the dwindling flagon of vodka. We enter upon Château Yquem, Pomeranian, and Caucasian claret. Then cakes are set out, and more tea, and finally a quart bottle of champagne. Alexsimevich stands to his guns like the 38th Siberians at Tien-tsin. But it is hard for any one of less rigorous training in this sort of thing to hold even the straggler’s pace at nine o’clock in the morning. Mentally we hoist the flag upside down, and wink at Alexsimevich as the outward and visible sign of the inward and spirituous distress. He takes the rest of the champagne in a last gulp, and with a series of thanks we gain the entrance to the shop, where two Mongols and a Buriat are waiting patiently, looking vacantly around at the crockery. We are shown ceremoniously to the door, shake hands, remark about the weather, give our compliments to the wife, and depart. When at the corner, we glance back. Vassili Michaeloff is still standing on the threshold; his three customers too are looking out leisurely at the people passing. “We have thrown his business out of gear,” we remark to Alexsimevich. He seems surprised. “There is plenty of time. Why should they mind waiting? _Nietchevo._” Another host is overjoyed to see us, for an engineering problem of great perplexity is, he tells us in due course, harassing his mind. No one in Urga can help him out, but perhaps we will.