Kikin had been relegated somehow to the back of the coal-cart, where he was conversing in Russian with Solomon Kohan and a nobleman who seemed to have some say over affairs financial. Peter and Daniel, lacking an interpreter, batted sentence-fragments back and forth in diverse tongues until they settled on French. The Tsar spoke it passably, once he had set his mind to it; but to discourse in a second language demanded more patience than Peter generally had. Sensing as much, Daniel limited his remarks to the likes of "turn left at the next corner" and "to run over pedestrians is frowned on," &c. But after a while his curiosity got the better of him. Partly it was that they were passing along the back of Bedlam, and Daniel was terrified that Peter would take an interest in it, and go inside to learn all about lunaticks. "Alors," Daniel said, "that Solomon Kohan is an interesting chap. Where on earth did you find him?"