Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1906 — Diplomacy. [ARTICLE]

Diplomacy.

During the peace negotiations at Portsmouth last summer -there "visited the town a well-known American traveler, who for years had been boasting to his friends of his profound knowledge of the language and customs, of Russia. When a man declares, in this-country that he “knows Russian,” there are few in a position successfully to contradict him. So the friends of the mail in question had never been able to “call his bluff.” Last summer, however, some one had learned of a meeting between the boastful person and Baron Rosen, the Russian ambassador. Accordingly, the question was Immediately put to the Muscovite whether the American had indeed a knowledge of the Russian language. At first the foreigner politely demurred the question, but, finally, when be was asked whether So-and-So was real ly much of a Russian scholar, the ambassador smilingly replied: “You mustn’t say anything about it, but your friend is sufficiently well acquainted with Russian not to attempt to speak it.” -— r-