nd Chinese and Japs--all sorts of
wild men. And last night I had a dream that all the lumps of ice in the
Nevski turned into griffins and went marching through the Red Square
eating every one up on their way...." Bohun laughed. "That's because
_I'd_ eaten something of course--too much _paskha_ probably.

"But, seriously, I came in this evening at five o'clock, and the first
thing I noticed was that little red lacquer musical box of Semyonov's.
You know it. The one with a sports-man in a top hat and a horse and a
dog on the lid. He brought it with some other little things when he
moved in. It's a jolly thing to look at, but it's got two most
irritating tunes. One's like 'The Blue Bells of Scotland.' You said
yourself the other day it would drive you mad if you heard it often.
Well, there it was, jangling away in its self-sufficient wheezy voice.
Semyonov was sitting in the armchair reading the newspaper, Markovitch
was standing behind the chair with the strangest look on his face.
Suddenly, just as I came in he bent down and I heard him say: 'Won't you
stop the beastly thing?' 'Certainly,' said Semyonov, and he went across
in his heavy plodding kind of way and stopped it. I went off to my room
and then, upon my word, five minutes after I heard it begin again, thin
and reedy through the walls. But when I came back into the dining-room
there was no one there. You can't think how that tune irritated me, and
I tried to stop it. I went up to it, but I couldn't find the hinge or
the key. So on it went, over and over again. Then there's another thing.
Have you ever noticed how some chairs will creak in a room, just as
though some one were sitting down or getting up? It always, in ordinary
times, makes you jump, but when you're strung up about something--!
There's a chair in the Markovitches' dining-room just like that. It
creaks more like a human being than anything you ever heard, and
to-night I could have sworn Semyonov got up out of it. It was just like
his heavy slow movement. However, there wasn't any one there. Do you
think all this silly?" he asked.

"No, indeed I don't," I answered.

"Then there's a picture. You know that awful painting of a mid-Victorian
ancestor of Vera's--a horrible old man with bushy eyebrows and a high,
rather dirty-looking stock?"

"Yes, I know it," I said.

"It's one of those pictures with eyes that follow you all round the
room. At least it has now. I usen't to notice them. Now they stare a