roline Caterna," said the actor, in much
the same tone as he would have introduced me to Patti or Sarah
Bernhardt.

"Having shaken hands with your husband," said I, "I shall be happy to
shake hands with you, Madame Caterna."

"There you are, then," said the actress, "and without ceremony, foot to
the front, and no prompting."

"As you see, no nonsense about her, and the best of wives--"

"As he is the best of husbands."

"I believe I am, Monsieur Claudius," said the actor, "and why? Because
I believe that marriage consists entirely in the precept to which
husbands should always conform, and that is, that what the wife likes
the husband should eat often."

It will be understood that it was touching to see this honest
give-and-take, so different from the dry business style of the two
commercials who were in conversation in the adjoining car.

But here is Baron Weissschnitzerdoerfer, wearing a traveling cap, coming
out of the dining car, where I imagine he has not spent his time
consulting the time-table.

"The good man of the hat trick!" said Caterna, after the baron went
back into the car without favoring us with a salute.

"He is quite German enough!" said Madame Caterna.

"And to think that Henry Heine called those people sentimental oaks!" I
added.

"Then he could not have known that one!" said Caterna. "Oak, I admit,
but sentimental--"

"Do you know why the baron has patronized the Grand Transasiatic?" I
asked.

"To eat sauerkraut at Pekin!" said Caterna.

"Not at all. To rival Miss Nelly Bly. He is trying to get around the
world in thirty-nine days."

"Thirty-nine days!" exclaimed Gaterna. "You should say a hundred and
thirty-nine!"

And in a voice like a husky clarinet the actor struck up the well-known
air from the Cloches de Corneville:

"I thrice have been around the world."

Adding, for the baron's benefit:

"He will not do the half."

CHAPTER X.

At a quarter-past twelve our train passed the station of Kari Bata,
which resembles one of the stations on the line from Naples to
Sorrento, with its Italian roofs. I noticed a vast Asiatico-Russian
camp, the flags waving in the fresh breeze. We have entered the Mervian
oasis, eighty miles long and eight wide, and containing about six
hundred thousand hectares--there is nothing like being precise at the
finish. Right and left are cultivated fields, clumps of fine trees, an
uninterrupted succ