The restaurant was a dirty place. The old plank floors were spotted with mud where the ice-balls from the heels of patrons had melted, and the blackened log rafters were cobwebby and sooty. There was an ancient icon in the corner. The walls had been partly stripped of a moldy old paper so that the yellow plaster showed through the gashes. And here, as in the hotel, there were bullet craters. Peter finished his glass of vodka and went out again. He hurried back toward the hotel, but he had not gone far when he espied in between two modern buildings and well back from the street, an old hut—an _isba_ of the old days. He stopped in his tracks and stared at it. The building was not more than eight feet square, of single story, with a small window under the eaves. There was a rude chimney of stones at one end. A sign over the door told that cigarettes, matches, and holy cards were sold within. Peter went in between the two buildings and pushed open the low and sagging door of the hut. There was an old man sitting on a bench under the window with a newspaper—a thin old hulk of a graybeard with a face shrouded in white whiskers that were stained yellow about his hidden mouth. He wore a tiny black skullcap on his head which brought out the bleached whiteness of his whiskers and the pallor of his crinkled forehead. His hands were tucked in the sleeves of his ragged old coat, and he huddled up toward the smoldering fire in the ancient fire-pit. Startled by Peter’s entrance, the old man thrust the newspaper behind him quickly. As he got to his feet he kicked the paper out of sight behind a box. He stood looking at Peter with questioning eyes, knowing that there was something strange about the visitor but not being able to tell what in the vague light coming through the frosted window. “Do you sell cigarettes here?” asked Peter. “Yes, I sell cigarettes here,” croaked the graybeard. “Is it that you have come for cigarettes to this poor place—you, who are dressed in odd clothes?” “What else should I come for?” asked Peter pleasantly. “Do you think I have come to rob you?” The old one appeared relieved, but he was still on his guard. “We never know what a man comes for these days. And you are not a man of Chita, I can tell that.” “What does it matter where I came from, if I pay for what I take? Come! Let me see some cigarettes!” The graybeard grunted and shuffled across the room to a shelf and took down some packets of tin covered with a faded paper.