“These people are enough to vex one of the saints, by their stupidity,” he said.  “Unless they have some one standing behind them with a whip, they cannot be trusted to do what they are told.  It is not that they are not willing, but that they are stupid.  No one would believe that people could be so stupid.  They drive me well nigh to madness sometimes, and it is the more irritating because, against stupidity, one is powerless.  Beating a man or knocking him down may do him good if he is obstinate, or if he is careless, but when he is simply stupid it only makes him more stupid than before.  You might as well batter a stone wall.

“You slept well and breakfasted well, Captain Carstairs?”

“Excellently well, thank you.  What superb horses you have, doctor.”

“Yes.  I like travelling fast.  Life is too short to throw away time in travelling.  A busy man should always keep good horses.”

“If he can afford to do so,” Charlie said with a laugh.  “I should say that every one, busy or not, would like to sit behind such horses as these, and, as you say, it would save a good deal of time to one who travelled much.  But three such horses as these would only be in the reach of one with a very long purse.”

“They were bred here.  Their sire was one of three given by the king of England to the czar.  The dams were from the imperial stables at Vienna.  So they ought to be good.”

Charlie guessed that the team must have been a present from the czar, and, remembering what Doctor Kelly had said of the czar’s personal communications with him, he thought that the ruler of Russia must have a particular liking for doctors, and that the medical profession must be a more honoured and profitable one in Russia than elsewhere.

After driving with great rapidity for upwards of an hour along the banks of the Neva, Charlie saw a great number of people at work on an island in the middle of the river, some distance ahead, and soon afterwards, to his surprise, observed a multitude on the flat, low ground ahead.

“This is what I have brought you to see,” his companion said.  “Do you know what they are doing?”

“It seems to me that they are building a fortress on that island.”

“You are right.  We have got a footing on the sea, and we are going to keep it.  While Charles of Sweden is fooling away his time in Poland, in order to gratify his spite against Augustus, we are strengthening ourselves here, and never again will Sweden wrest Ingria from our hands.”

“It is marvellous how much has been done already,” Charlie said, as he looked at the crowd of workmen.