I passed the paper to Rouletabille, who shrugged his shoulders and said: “That’s a nice thing! Without even asking my opinion! What does that fool of an editor think that I am going to do out there? I’m not interested in the Czar. Let him and his Nihilists settle their squabbles for themselves! It is their affair, not mine! To Russia? I shall apply for a vacation—that’s what I’ll do! I need rest. I’ll tell you, Sainclair, you and I will go somewhere together. We’ll take a nice, quiet rest——”
“Not if I know it!” I cried hastily. “Thanks very much but I have had enough of your kind of ‘nice, quiet rest’! I have a wild desire to work!”
“Just as you like. I won’t insist.”
As we drew nearer Paris, he bathed his hands and face, combed his hair and turned out his pockets. And in one of them he was surprised to find a red envelope which had come there without anyone knowing how.
“What nonsense is this?” he remarked carelessly, tearing it open.
Then he burst into a peal of laughter. I had found my gay Rouletabille again and I was anxious to know the reason for this hilarity.
“Why, I’m going, old man!” he exclaimed. “I’m going to start immediately! When things begin to come like this, it’s a little different. I shall take the train to-night.”
“Where to?”
“To St. Petersburg.”
He handed me the letter and I read: