CHAPTER VII.
OLD HANDS Karl Steinmetz lifted his pen from the paper before him and scratched his forehead with his forefinger.
"Now, I wonder," he said aloud, "how many bushels there are in a ton.
Ach! how am I to find out?
These English weights and measures, this English money, when there is a metrical system!" He sat and hardly looked up when the clock struck seven.

It was a quiet room this in which he sat, the library of Paul's London house.

The noise of Piccadilly reached his ears as a faint roar, not entirely unpleasant, but sociable and full of life.

Accustomed as he was to the great silence of Russia, where sound seems lost in space, the hum of a crowded humanity was a pleasant change to this philosopher, who loved his kind while fully recognizing its little weaknesses.
While he sat there still wondering how many bushels of seed made a ton, Paul Alexis came into the room.

The younger man was in evening dress.