[Pg 41] Gilbert sat down, and in great haste a clerk was sent to the hostelry at which Gilbert had been stopping. Ten minutes later the clerk returned, and the young American was then told that he could not be accommodated. “Here’s a state of things truly,” thought the ex-lieutenant. “I wonder if it is going to be this way all over.” It was so at the next hotel, and also that following. Then Gilbert found a small place kept by a German who had a Russian wife. Business was bad with the German, and he listened eagerly to the offer the young American made him. “I told you vot,” he said. “I keep you, but you say noddings apout it, hey? You haf der room py der back of der house und you eats dare, too, hey?” “I’m willing,” said Gilbert; and so it was settled. By this time he was tremendously hungry, and never did a meal taste better than that which the German hotel keeper set before him. [Pg 42] [Pg 42] CHAPTER V THE FIRST NAVAL BATTLE THE FIRST NAVAL BATTLE While Gilbert was having his own troubles in Port Arthur the differences between Russia and Japan were speedily reaching the acute stage. Long before, by the Anglo-Japanese treaty, Russia had promised to evacuate Manchuria. But this, as we have already seen, had not been done, and, instead the Russians had begun to flock to northern Korea, where a certain company obtained mining possessions and even began to construct fortifications. These advances meant, to Japan, but one thing—the occupation, eventually, by Russia of the whole of Manchuria and Korea. This would become a constant menace to Japan, and protests were at once made at St. Petersburg, calling for a friendly settlement between the two interested nations and China and Korea. The outcome was thoroughly unsatisfactory to Japan. Russia contended that so far as Manchuria was concerned she would treat only with China, and[Pg 43] that Japan must keep out of the muddle. Regarding Korea she was willing to allow Japan to operate, commercially, in the south, so long as Russia was left alone in the north.
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