“You are his friend?” The polished worldliness falls away as a cloak that is thrown off. “Splendid!” he says. “Welcome to our city. We must have tea.” He pushes a bell, and a page, red-bloused and wearing brightly polished jack-boots, appears. “_Chai_, Alexis,” he orders. “And how did you leave Ignatieff?” he begins eagerly. “Does he still drive his black stallions? It is two years that I have not seen him. When I was in Petersburg last winter, he was in Paris, and when I was in Paris, he was at Nice. One is very separated from his friends here. One might as well be a convict.” You answer all his questions, and begin to feel as if you were at a little family party. Presently, in the midst of the double conversation,--for the Russians seem to talk and listen at the same time,--the boy comes in with a big samovar, and the other accompaniments. The banker makes the brew in the china pot. From this each of us serves himself as the compound conversation moves on. “You have not yet seen the sights of Irkutsk?” he observes at last. “I will get my sleigh and show you around when we have finished.” “It is the middle of the day. I cannot break into your work like that,” you protest. But he rings a bell for the red-jacketed boy. “Order my sleigh.--We have the finest city in Siberia,” he continues; “eighty thousand people now, and growing always. And trade has come with the railroad as we had not dreamed before. In the days when they used to bring the tea overland from Kiahta, the sledges from Baikal would carry as many as five thousand bales daily. We thought when this began to be shipped through by the railroad that it would hurt the city. But there was so much other traffic that the loss was hardly felt.” “The sleigh is ready,” the boy announces. “May I have the honor?” he says, with his easy grace. He leads the way to the coat-rack, and is received with the deepest bows by the uniformed worthy, who solicitously helps him on with his coat and overshoes. Then with a stereotyped motion the man holds out his hand for the tip. Though this servant is at the door of the banker’s own office and presumably upon his pay-roll, the incessant tribute is his perquisite. It is usual throughout Siberia for wealthy Russians to scatter small silver everywhere along their path--to friends’ servants, to house-porters, to beggars on the street. The most profuse miscellaneous generosity prevails. Riding to-day with the Russian banker is like watching the progress of a mediæval prince dispensing his largesse. At the entrance to the bank is the sleigh, skeleton-framed and high-built, unlike most of the sleighs of Siberia. Three big black horses, with the snake-like Arab head that characterizes the best Orloff strains, are hitched to it, troika-fashion, the centre horse under a big bow yoke, the outside animals running free. The coachman has the square pillow-hat, and the enormous wadded corpulence of Jehu elegance.