He gave me a passage across, and took me to the house of a man he knew.

Of course, it was no use my trying to doctor people, when they could not tell me what was the matter with them, and I worked at one thing and another, doing anything I could turn my hands to, for four or five months.

That is how I got to pick up Swedish.

Then some people told me that Russia was a place where a doctor might get on, for that they had got no doctors for their army who knew anything of surgery, and the czar was always ready to take on foreigners who could teach them anything.

I had got my diploma with me, and some of my friends came forward and subscribed enough to rig me out in clothes and pay my passage.