We all settled down in a circle and our good friend Alexandr Vassilyevitch Ridel (his surname was German but he was Russian to the marrow of his bones) began as follows: I am going to tell you a story, friends, of something that happened to me in the 'thirties ... forty years ago as you see. I will be brief--and don't you interrupt me. I was living at the time in Petersburg and had only just left the University.