As a man often gets into trouble trying to keep out of it, so the Ashcroft chaps lost by trying to win; and here it is consoling to know that all a man does or says in this world sinks and lies motionless in the silent past, for in this case it will only be a matter of time when people will cease to remember.  But to leave all joking aside, we beg to advise that the adventurers were dumped unceremoniously into Moscow by the C.P.R. officials at about three good morning and had not where to lay their heads.  You could not see the city for buildings; but even at that embryo hour of the morning the streets were not entirely deserted.  Some people seem to toil day and night, for there were dozens of forms moving hither and thither like phantoms in the powerful glare of the electric illuminations.  Being Ashcroft people our heroes were accustomed to city life, and the embarrassment of the situation soon evaporated.  They bundled themselves into a nocturnal automobile which was no sooner loaded than it “hit” the streets of Vancouver like Halley’s comet.  It went up and down, out and in, hither and thither.  It tried to leap from under the invaders, but they kept up with it.  It went north forty chains, east forty chains, south forty chains, and thence west forty chains to point of commencement.  It went here, then there, and ultimately arranged to stop on Richards Street (named after our John), at the foot of the elevator of the Hotel Canadian.  This was the end of steel for the auto, the rest of the journey had to be made on foot via the elevator.  It is a very pleasant sensation to have the floor rise and carry you with it to the third landing, and it only takes three seconds to make a sixty second journey.  At the third floor, after having been shown their stalls for the night, the bandits went out on an exploring expedition while the stable man let down some hay.

They located the fire escape, as it is always better to come in by the front door like a millionaire and leave by the fire escape in the dead of the night when the stableman is asleep at his post.

Early next morning, at about ten o’clock, they invaded the dining-room as hungry as hyenas, and had a lovely breakfast of porridge and cream, ham and eggs, toast and butter, tea or coffee.  To encourage the coffee somewhat the Deacon “dug” his front foot into the lump-sugar bowl and extracted a couple of aces; and the other mimics followed suit with two, three, and four spots.  The breaking of this fast cost forty-five cents for the meal, and fifty-five for the waiter just to make the “eat” come to even money, and they were too large socially to take away small change economically.  Every meal they put into their waste baskets necessarily extracted one day from the other end of their excursion via the fire escape, and that is one reason why they returned so soonly.  Cyclone, having drawn on his personal account at a Vancouver branch of the Ashcroft bank for enough to pay his next meal and car