His philosophizing was interrupted by ore of the biggest men I have ever seen who approached and stood towering above us. I took him in gradually from his rough leather boots, similar to a Canadian lumberjack's, with their inlaid silver design stretching half way up his enormous thighs, to his engle over one ear. My cartoonist friend presented me with a touch of jocular formality stating. that boris was one of the newly arrived youngsters from Vladivostock who had come to cast his lot in Shanghai, following the capture by the Bolsheviks of the Far Eastern Republic.
Boris unbent and acknowledged the introduction in halting English apologizing for his poor command of my mother tongue. He was a fluent French scholar and had studied in the Officers Schoo] of the Russian Army at Krasnoe and St. Petersburg so we conversed in French. He too had passed. through the war, which quickly established a common bond of understanding, had seen most of the fighting on the Eastern front and had been present during the fall of Przymsl. He was a. member of the old Russian aristocracy and as we sat there he recounted several interesting reminiscences of his student days in St. Peters burg before the war.
I happened to inquire whether he intended seeing Pavlowa who was playing an enagement in Shanghai at the time. He replied rather gruffly in the negative and conversation languished until my cartoonist friend explained in English, You see Pavlowa is rather a sore point with Boris, We have all urged him to go and send ther a bouquet from the club, but Boris feels that perhaps she might not quite understand, since in the old days—it was rather different—that's all." I caught his nod and knew that the subject must not. be brought up again.
Fortunately to save any further embarrassment, two new arrivals "strolled in" at this opportune moment, One was a swarthy chap cressed in conventional European clothes but wearing the gaudiest pink turban J have ever seen. It wag just the colour of strawberry ice cream. He was accompanied by a "Digger" from 'Haustraylia'? of a most ferocious aspect, with a harelip and a large pointed molar that—_ protruded. When the "digger" shook hands the cartilage and bone felt crushed, but the hudly smile of his eyes and his real enthusiasm removed the sting of the first doubtful impression. He whistled shrilly to "Tatters,"'—a dog of doubtful parentage, who was busily tearing up one of the flower beds in search of an elusive bone.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.