"Isn't it just as good as a geography book to hear him?" he demanded several times. "To think of the natives of Yezo tattooing blue mustaches on the girl-babies to make sure they'll catch a husband! Ho, ho, that tickles me! There's a tip for Cousin Virginia, Joan." Here Ellen, who had been making her fourth unnecessary round with the potatoes, suddenly spluttered and retired to her pantry. ("The ice," remarked Nikolai to Joan, "is beginning to break.") "I've always thought," mused Archie, "that I'd like to see the world a little myself some time. Armadillos on their native heath, Esquimaux eating tallow candles, the Latin Quarter in Paris whooping it up--things like that. But now," he finished with a happy glance at his wife, "I'm glad enough to be allowed to stay just where I am." "Who wouldn't be?" murmured his guest. "With such a charming home--" "You ought to have been here when my garden was growing," said Archie, highly gratified. "If I do say it myself, there's not a farmer in the State raises better bib-lettuce than I do. As for our asparagus--yum-yum! Simply melts in the mouth." The other looked at him very kindly. "Was that also one of your earlier dreams--to be a farmer?" Archie nodded. "It's always seemed to me about the finest thing a man could do, if he were able to--live on the land as he was intended to, raise what he needs to eat and a little more for his friends; chickens and pigs and a cow, and perhaps a little blooded stock if he could manage it--" He broke off with a faint sigh. "Why, dear," cried his wife, surprised, "I never suspected you of these bucolic ambitions!" "I reckon most men have 'em, if they'll own up to it--don't they, Mr. Nikolai? Look how all boys love to dig in the dirt!... But you needn't worry, darlingest. I'm never going to take _you_ off and bury you in the country. I know better than that!" It was late when Nikolai rose to leave them, declining an urgent invitation to occupy their guest-room. "No, I must get back to the hotel and relieve Sacha's mind. If I do not he will certainly set out to find me, and as he has no language but Russian, that might lead to complications." "Who," demanded Joan, "is Sacha, pray? Have you been stylish enough to set up a valet?" "It is Sacha who appears to have set me up. I had occasion once to do him a kindness, and he thereupon attached himself permanently to my person. There is no creature on earth so grateful as a grateful Russian." Joan took him by the arms and made him sit down again. "Not a foot do you stir till you tell us all about it!" she proclaimed, scenting a story. "About what? Sacha? Well!--In a village where I stopped for awhile a young mouzhik had been very badly beaten and thrown into prison to await trial, and things promised to go rather badly with him. So--" "Wait a minute. _Why_ had he been beaten?" "For murder," said Nikolai calmly. His audience gasped.