We propose spending about an hour in the village, if you will kindly advise the starosta to be ready for us.

It was nearly dark when Karl Steinmetz and the Moscow doctor rode into the little village, to find the starosta, a simple Russian farmer, awaiting them outside the kabak.

" As they walked down the straggling village-street the Moscow doctor told the starosta in no measured terms, as was his wont, wherein lay the heart of the sickness.

I visited the starosta, and he indicated a home where I might sleep the night.