ever joking: 'Faith, my friend,' he said to me, 'this is too much moderation. You have too great a respect for the bottle.' Beheve me, sir, one must practise all the time. Otherwise, one gets rusty. The best marksman I ever knew practised every day, firing at least three shots before his dinner; he would no more have missed them than he would have omitted his cognac before dinner."^[1]

Both the Count and his wife seemed pleased to listen to me.

"And how did he shoot? " asked the Count.

"How? Let me tell you. He would see a fly on the wall . . . You laugh? Madam, I swear to you this is true. 'Eh! Kouska I a pistol!' Kouska would bring one loaded. Crack! there lay the fly flattened against the wall."

" What consummate skill!" cried the Count, "and what was this man's name?"

"Silvio, sir."

"Silvio!" cried the Count, starting to his feet. "You have known Silvio?"

"Have I known him? Well, rather. We were the greatest of friends; he was like one of us in the regiment. But it is five years now since I heard of him, and you also knew him?"

1. ↑ It is the custom in Russia to take a glass of brandy before the soup.