handsome refreshment
rooms, equal in appearance to those at the large stations in England,--
there is one for each class. At one of these they stopped for
three-quarters of an hour, when a good dinner was served at about
half-past four. They did not note the name of the place, but Harry
suggested that it must have been _Chudova_, which was one of the
principal places on the road.

_Chew_!

"Oh, oh, Harry!" exclaimed Fred as he heard his brother's atrocious pun.

The tea is excellent at these places; a tumblerful costs ten kopecks,
but a regular tea costs thirty, about fifteen-pence; indeed, the charges
are much the same as in England. Probably at home, more substantial and
better fare is to be got at the same price.

As soon as the train stops, out get all the passengers, and a very
motley assemblage they form as they pace up and down on the platform.
Uniforms of all sorts predominate, from the modern-coated, richly-laced
officer of the Emperor's guard, to the sombre-dressed rank and file of
the line. There were Circassians and Georgians, and Cossacks of the Don
and Volga, and other remote districts, in blue and silver coats, fur
caps with red tops, and wide trousers, and yellow boots, and gauntlets
on their hands, and jewelled daggers, and chain armour, and carved
scimitars, with black, flashing eyes, and thickly curling glossy beards
and moustaches, their language as well as their appearance telling of
far-off southern regions, which have succumbed before the arms or the
diplomacy of Russia. Then there were Armenians and Persians, men of
peace, intent only on making money, with high-pointed fur caps, long
gowns, full, dark trousers, and waists belted not to carry swords, but
inkhorns; and Tartars with turbans, and rich shawls, and
gold-embroidered slippers; and priests with low-crowned, broad-brimmed
hats, beneath which straggled huge quantities of long light hair, and
long green coats, and crosses rather ostentatiously shown at their
breasts. There were traders, too, from the northern cities of the
Empire, dressed in long dressing-gown-looking coats, more properly
described as dirty than clean, and high boots, and low-crowned hats, and
beards of considerable length and thickness; while the humbler classes,
the mujicks, evidently delighted in pink shirts with their tails worn
outside their trousers, and fastened round their waist with a sash or
belt. These wore caps, and high boots, and long coats, like th