"He and the czar had no grounds at all of quarrel against him." "We talked over that, the last time we met," the doctor said with a laugh, "and I told you then that a foothold on the Baltic was so necessary to Russia, that she would have accepted the alliance of the Prince of Darkness himself to get it.

As to Augustus, I don't defend him.

He was ambitious, as I suppose most of us are.

He thought he saw an opportunity of gaining territory.

He has found that he has made a mistake, and will of course lose a province.