attack, to come and remain by the side of his dear comrade Feodor.  He had done this after each attack, without forgetting one.  He was a faithful friend.  But he fretted because they might not go bear-hunting as in their youth.  ’Where, he would ask, are there any bears remaining in Courlande, or trees for that matter, what you could call trees, growing since the days of the grand-dukes of Lithuania, giant trees that threw their shade right up to the very edge of the towns?  Where were such things nowadays?  Thaddeus was very amusing, for it was he, certainly, who had cut them away tranquilly enough and watched them vanish in locomotive smoke.  It was what was called Progress.  Ah, hunting lost its national character assuredly with tiny new-growth trees which had not had time to grow.  And, besides, one nowadays had not time for hunting.  All the big game was so far away.  Lucky enough if one seized the time to bring down a brace of woodcock early in the morning.  At this point in Thaddeus’s conversation there was a babble of talk among the convivial gentlemen, for they had all the time in the world at their disposal and could not see why he should be so concerned about snatching a little while at morning or evening, or at midday for that matter.  Champagne was flowing like a river when Rouletabille was brought in by Matrena Petrovna.  The general, whose eyes had been on the door for some time, cried at once, as though responding to a cue: 

“Ah, my dear Rouletabille!  I have been looking for you.  Our friends wrote me you were coming to St. Petersburg.”

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In this story according to Russian habit General Trebassof is called alternately by that name or the family name Feodor Feodorovitch, and Madame Trebassof by that name or her family name, Matrena Petrovna.- Translator’s Note. ___________________________________
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Rouletabille hurried over to him and they shook hands like friends who meet after a long separation.  The reporter was presented to the company as a close young friend from Paris whom they had enjoyed so much during their latest visit to the City of Light.  Everybody inquired for the latest word of Paris as of a dear acquaintance.

“How is everybody at Maxim’s?” urged the excellent Athanase Georgevitch.

Thaddeus, too, had been once in Paris and he returned with an enthusiastic liking for the French demoiselles.

“Vos gogottes, monsieur,” he said, appearing very amiable and leaning on each word, with a guttural emphasis such as is common in the western provinces, “ah, vos gogottes!”

Matrena Perovna tried to silence him, but Thaddeus insisted on his right to appreciate the fair sex away from home.  He had a turgid, sentimental wife, always weeping and cramming her religious notions down his throat.

Of course someone asked Rouletabille what he thought of Russia, but he had no more than opened his mouth to reply than Athanase Georgevitch closed it by interrupting: