trip across Eastern Europe at a moment when the great
Russian railway strike was developing from a threat to a
reality; its outbreak caught him on the return journey,
somewhere on the further side of Perm, and it was while
waiting for a couple of days at a wayside station in a
state of suspended locomotion that he made the
acquaintance of a dealer in harness and metalware, who
profitably whiled away the tedium of the long halt by
initiating his English travelling companion in a
fragmentary system of folk-lore that he had picked up
from Trans-Baikal traders and natives.  Leonard returned
to his home circle garrulous about his Russian strike
experiences, but oppressively reticent about certain dark
mysteries, which he alluded to under the resounding title
of Siberian Magic.  The reticence wore off in a week or
two under the influence of an entire lack of general
curiosity, and Leonard began to make more detailed
allusions to the enormous powers which this new esoteric
force, to use his own description of it, conferred on the
initiated few who knew how to wield it.  His aunt,