UNCLE was station-master of a little place called Rubezhniya, a village of ten families. Rubezhniya is on the edge of a great forest, though, I think, that in Russia they call it a little wood. It extends a few hundred miles, but then there is a forest in Russia where a squirrel might travel straight on eastward four thousand miles, going from branch to branch and never touching earth once. Rubezhniya is also on the black land, and its peasants have money in the autumn, though, it may be remarked, there is never any left by the time winter approaches. Surplus money, unfortunately, finds its way quickly to the exchequer of an unthrifty Government and to the pockets of the farmer of the vodka monopoly.