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PREFACE I make so bold as to believe that the faculty (or the habit) of closely and carefully observing the characters of men, is ;a rare one. I have not even found, within my experience, that the faculty (or the habit) of closely and carefully observing so much as the faces of men, is a general...

FAIR spring day was drawing to a close. Little rosy clouds hung high in the clear sky, seeming to melt in the azure depths as they floated slowly past. Before the open window of a handsome house in the suburbs of the gubernia town of 0-—(it was in the year 1842) sat two women; one was about...

A fail' spring day was drawing to a close. Little rosy clouds liung fiigh in the clear sky, seeming to melt in the azure depths as they floated slowly past. Before the open window of a handsome house in the suburbs of the gubernia town of O—(it was in the year 1842) sat two women; one was...

CHAPTER ONE Dubenko, the works director, called in the manager of the open-hearth shiop and handed him a weighty memorandum book—specifications for the mianufacture and rolling of a new grade of steel. "We're shifting to a very complex alloy steel, Comrade Krainev," he said. "Armour plate,...