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This appeared to be another call on my resources. I was equal to the
emergency. I said we had eighty thousand convicts employed on the
railways in America--all of them under sentence of death for murder in
the first degree. That closed him out.
We had General Todtleben (the famous defender of Sebastopol, during the
siege,) and many inferior army and also navy officers, and a number of
unofficial Russian ladies and gentlemen. Naturally, a champagne luncheon
was in order, and was accomplished without loss of life. Toasts and
jokes were discharged freely, but no speeches were made save one thanking
the Emperor and the Grand Duke, through the Governor-General, for our
hospitable reception, and one by the Governor-General in reply, in which
he returned the Emperor's thanks for the speech, etc., etc.
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