52 SAVAGE SVANETIA. 



ment of all business in Russia, while I got 

 through several cigarettes in sulky silence. 



At last the clerk came. A tall, dark lady 

 of a somewhat masculine type, but still dis- 

 tinctly a beauty, if she had not, in her passion 

 for woman's rights, cut her hair to the unbe- 

 coming length of a schoolboy's, who has 

 evaded the monthly barber. She gave us a 

 gracious bow, made a trifling apology for her 

 absence as she nibbled at a fine bunch of 

 grapes which she was carrying ; and then, 

 having arranged what was left of her back 

 hair, and fixed the blind so that the light was 

 exactly to her liking, she sank gracefully into 

 her chair before the telegraph instrument, and 

 proceeded, smiling sweetly all the while with 

 her admirable dark eyes, to catechise me as 

 to the whence, whither, and wherefore of my 

 journey. Now I hope I am as devout an 

 admirer of the fair sex as any of my country- 

 men, but I aj^peal to my readers, is this the 



