The Englishmen took charge of the left-handed man, but sent the Russian Courier back to Russia. Although the Courier had a rank[33] and was skilled in divers languages, they took no interest in him, but they did find the left-handed man interesting, and set about taking him everywhere and showing him everything.  
He inspected all their products, and their metal foundries, and their soap and saw-mills, and all their domestic arrangements pleased him exceedingly, especially those pertaining to the maintenance of the workingman. Every laborer among them is always well fed, clothed not in rags but each in a capable every-day waistcoat, and shod with stout boots with iron caps, so that their feet might never receive any shock from anything. And they work not[Pg 77] at haphazard but after training, and understand their business. In front of every one of them hangs a multiplication table, and close by his hand is an erasing-board;[34] whenever an artisan does anything, he looks at the multiplication table, and verifies it with surety, and then writes down one thing on the board and erases another, and brings it into accuracy: what is written in figures turns out just so in fact. And when a holiday comes, they assemble in pairs, each takes a slender rod in his hand, and they go off to enjoy themselves in honorably dignified fashion, as is fitting.
 
The left-handed man gazed his fill at their manner of life and all their labors, but devoted most attention of all to one object which caused the[Pg 78] Englishmen great amazement. He was not so much absorbed in their manner of making new guns as in the condition of the old ones. He kept going about and uttering praises, and saying: "And this, also, we can do." But when he came across an old gun, he would thrust his finger into the barrel, draw it along the walls, and sigh; "This," says he, "is incomparably finer than ours."
 
The Englishmen could by no means divine what it was that the left-handed man was commenting upon, but he inquired: "Cannot I find out whether our Generals ever beheld this or not?"
 
They say to him: "Some of them have been over here, and they must have seen it."
 
"But how were they," says he, "with gloves or without gloves?"
 
"Your Generals," say they, "are always in full dress; they always go about[Pg 79] in gloves, and, of course, they did so here, also."
 
The left-handed man said nothing, but all at once he began to get uneasy and bored. He pined, and pined, and said to the Englishmen: "I thank you sincerely for all your hospitality, and I am very content here with you, and all that it was necessary for me to see I have seen, and now I desire to return home as speedily as possible."
 
They could by no means detain him longer. It was impossible to let him go home by land, because he did not know all the languages, and it was not good to sail upon the sea, because it was the autumn season, and stormy; but he insisted: "Let me go."
 
"We have looked at the buremeter,"[35] they said. "There is going to be a storm—you may be drowned:[Pg 80] for this is not like your Gulf of Finland, but this is the regular Dryland Sea."[36]
 
"That makes no difference," he replied: &quo............